By Mohamed Al-Khazim
THE National Festival for Heritage and Culture at Janadriyah is organized by the Ministry of National Guard. Is it a cultural, heritage, tourist or entertainment event?
The Souk Okaz festival used to be organized by the Makkah governorate before it was handed over to the Saudi Commission for Tourism and National Heritage (SCTH). Is this souk a cultural, tourist or entertainment festival?
The entertainment cities are under the supervision of the SCTH. Are they tourist or entertainment facilities?
The book fairs are organized by the Ministry of Culture and Information. Are they only cultural events or occasions of attraction for tourists?
These are only few examples of the duality and similarity of roles and products in events taking place around the Kingdom.
We cannot completely differentiate between what is cultural, tourist or entertaining. The theater, for instance, is a place for entertainment and cultural awareness at the same time. The book fair is an event both for culture and tourism. The amusement cities are places for tourism and entertainment.
In my opinion there is an obvious duality between the Ministry of Culture and Information in its cultural aspect and the SCTH. This duality is also clear in a number of other organizations, which have exerted or still making efforts to boost culture and heritage.
While we were proposing to merge the culture and tourism into a single entity, a new body came up. This is the Entertainment Authority, which was recently established.
This looks as if we are searching for an independent entity for entertainment, which is separate from culture and tourism.
Months have passed but we still do not know what is the exact identity of this newly established authority, its modus operandi and its products and services. We are not sure how this authority will deal with the existing bodies in charge of culture, entertainment or tourism.
There is a management philosophy that has many supporters even if I do not agree with them. This philosophy says if you are concerned with something, establish an independent administrative organ for it.
This is exactly what the government has tried to do through the creation of an authority for entertainment. The government wanted to prove its keenness and concern for entertainment to bring happiness to society.
The government has created the authority and furnished it with all the required financial and administrative support.
Entertainment is an important issue as an industry and also as a method of bringing joy and happiness to people.
I appreciate the fact the government›s keenness to ensure happiness in society has led it to establish the entertainment authority but I do not hesitate to question the possibility of reviewing the very purpose behind its establishment.
We should seriously think of bringing all administrations in charge of culture, tourism, heritage and entertainment under one umbrella body.
This body may be a ministry or a commission. I suggest the establishment of an authority for culture and tourism, which will also be responsible for heritage and entertainment.
Culture did not gain much from clubbing it with information. When we separated entertainment from tourism we changed the role of SCTH to just supervising the tourism facilities.
If the situation continues as is, there will be a duality in responsibilities and duties of many public bodies. We need a single strong reference for tourism and culture to be in charge of legislation so as to give the opportunity to the private sector to organize tourist, entertainment and cultural events.
If the entertainment, culture and tourism authorities are not merged into a single body or in two instead of the present three, we will need to identify the roles and responsibilities of each of the three existing organizations.
We actually need a higher body to coordinate the activities of all three existing bodies and ensure integration among them.
