The Minister of Tourism, Siandou Fofana said to place youth at the heart of tourism development, in a statement relating to the celebration, Sunday April 16, 2023 of the World Day of Leisure (JMT 2023) .

Around the national theme The impact of leisure in the integration and development of youth, Mr. Siandou Fofana recalled that Côte d’Ivoire, under the leadership and avant-garde vision of the President of the Republic , Alassane Ouattara declared the year 2023 as the year dedicated to youth.

And, in the different versions of this state program, the Ivorian Government, which intends to make the tourism ecosystem a sector that provides jobs and foreign currency with the entertainment economy as a major lever, has decided to place the celebration, this April 16, of the JMT whose international theme is Leisure at the service of social transformation.

In the Ivorian context, and in line with government priorities, JML 2023 is placed under the theme of The impact of leisure in the integration and development of youth.

The actual festivities of this celebration will be held on May 13, 2023 at the National Institute for Youth and Sports (INJS) in Abidjan-Marcory.

As a prelude to this date, the General Director of Leisure, Mrs. Isabelle Anoh, specified that a panel will be organized to allow young people and experts to discuss and propose useful actions.

During the celebration of JML 2022, at Banco National Park, in Abidjan, Minister Siandou Fofana noted that the leisure economy is equivalent to a global market whose different segments generated more than 1.4 trillion dollars in 2021. and the indicators estimate, according to an annual growth of 13%, a record figure of 2000 billion dollars in 2025! .

The materialization of the Government’s ambition to make the Ivorian destination a hub of the Leisure industry in Africa in a dynamic of positioning Côte d’Ivoire as a country with a tourist vocation and classified in the African Top 5.

Leisure is the set of activities to which an individual can indulge voluntarily, either for entertainment, or to develop his information or his disinterested formation, his voluntary social participation or his free creative capacity after having freed himself from their professional, family or social obligations.

Source Agence Ivoirienne de Presse