Tobias Kulang

Tourists from cruise ships traveling into Alotau will experience an aerial view of the township and outer islands following the launch of the chopper service recently.

The chopper service is operated by HeliScope PNG and will offer three different tours for tourists.

This service provides a 12-minute tour, 25-minute tour and a 40-minute tour towards East Cape, showing cruise line guests the beautiful scenery of the province.

Kulang said this is an exciting addition to what Alotau can provide for tourism in PNG.

Minister for Tourism, Tobias Kulang officially opened the weekend’s festivities by presenting a cheque of K50, 000 for the festival celebrations.

More than a thousand people attended the first day of the Kenu and Kundu Festival.

A flight with 42 people on board also flew in straight from Brisbane to witness the festival.

Apart from the Minister for Tourism, other MP’s like Steven Davis, Gordon Wesley and Governor Titus Philemon also made guest appearances at the festival.

The launching was done today with presentation of uniforms from the Minister of Arts, Culture and Tourism and Member for Kundiawa Gembogl, Tobias Kulang.

It was a milestone sporting event in the calendar of Chimbu Province with enthusiastic participants in all age groups ready to vie for the trophies and the cash prize money.

The race will be in categories including equal participation of students.

Minister Kulang, while presenting the uniforms to the runners, outlined the importance of the race and the contribution it brings, not only into the sport of marathon.

The exhibitors include local arts and culture businesses and local tourism operators like hotels and tours operators from across the country.

This is the first time the expo has incorporated culture, arts and tourism.

The expo was officially launched by Minister for Tourism, Arts and Culture Tobias Kulang.

Kulang said the highlight of this event is the presence of international agents that will be marketing PNG tourism products overseas.

He said what this country can offer is through all the different local operators showcased at the expo.

Dr Moutu took up the position as the director for PNG NMAG in 2010.

The Office of Tourism, Arts and Culture (OTAC) is now going through the process of advertising an appointment for the position.

Minister for Tourism, Arts and Culture Tobias Kulang has directed the Board of Trustees NMAG to submit a list of three candidates to be considered by the National Executive Council for an acting appointment.

Kulang said an acting appointee will be announced in the next few days.

The historical event was officiated by Sports Minister, Justin Tkatchenko, Toursim Minister, Tobias Kulang, President of the Oceania Football Confederation, David Chung and FIFA Head of Women’s Competitions, Tatjana Haenni.

Members of the 15 teams that are coming to PNG were present to witness the unveiling.

As well as the prestigious Trophy that goes with the title, this trophy is special for Papua New Guinea because it has “FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup Papua New Guinea 2016” engraved on the small metal plate.

“I will make sure we will go through the record of discussions amongst the delegates from the APEC member economies that have a lot of experiences in the tourism sector, and we adopt some of their comments and discussions to improve our tourism market and destination.”

Kulang was speaking at the opening of the 49th Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation-APEC Tourism Working Group Meeting yesterday in Kokopo, East New Britain.

Tourism Minister Tobias Kulang did the ground breaking ceremony today for construction to commence.

The event was witnessed by chief executive officer of Tourism Promotion Authority Jerry Agus, few visitors at the park and PNP staff.

The picnic village will feature traditional houses from the various provinces that are significant including the famous Trobriand yam house, round house from the Highlands, tree house of Koiari and haus Tambaran from the Sepik region.

Tourism Minister Tobias Kulang said that in the last 40 years, PNG has been depending too much on mineral resources and hydro carbon proceeds that we don’t pay attention to sustainable industries.

Kulang said we need to invest in sustainable industries so that when the minerals become exhausted, we can depend on sustainable resources to contribute immensely to the country’s economy.

“Tourism is a very serious industry where in other countries and contributes immensely to their economic growth.

He said TPA must profile every province, tourism site and destination to promote the country leading up to the 2018 APEC Leaders’ Summit.

Kulang explained that we must have this ready for the international community even before the APEC Meeting and leading up to that.

Kulang said

“We were supposed to prepare the nation in terms of marketing when the eyes of the rest of the Pacific Islands and the world were on us but unfortunately that didn’t happen.

“TPA did not do one thing in terms of marketing and that needs to improve leading up to APEC,” Kulang said.