Government of Timor-Leste

The Ministry of Tourism, Commerce and Industry, through the Office of the Vice-Minister of Community and Cultural Tourism, together with the Directorate-General of Tourism and the National Directorate of Community and Cultural Tourism, on January 15^th and 16^th, 2023, held a seminar on Development, Management and Promotion of Tourism Activity in Timor-Leste, at the Memory Hall, in Dili.

Coordinators from 18 Villages of the pilot programmes Jornada Resistência, Jornada Café Mambae, and Community Tourism attended the event.

The event also included the participation, as a speaker, of Lia Afriza, lecturer at the Stiepar Yapari Faculty of Tourism Economics in Bandung, Indonesia, who shared her experience on tourism site development, mainly at the Village level with the possibility of creating community tourism destinations. 

Lia Afriza presented several topics, such as community-based tourism, tourism communication, customer service and tourism marketing. She also answered the doubts and questions raised by the participants.

The Vice-Minister of Community and Cultural Tourism, Inácia da Conceição Teixeira, during the seminar, acknowledged the coordinators of the Jornada Resistência, Jornada Café Mambae and Community Tourism programmes for their participation.

The Vice-Minister stressed the importance of the event “for allowing the sharing of knowledge with experts involved in the community development process in Indonesia, mainly in Bandung, capital of West Java province”.

She added that “this is a great opportunity for national coordinators who manage tourism projects, particularly community-based tourism” and that “the experience shared by Lia Afriza could act as a positive seed for the development of the tourism sector in their villages.

Joaquim de Fátima, Coordinator of the Maubisse Tourist Site, expressed his contentment “for having learned a lot during the two-days seminar, mainly about management and how to run a tourist site positively and successfully.”