Do we still have resident bands?

The only time the country has ever tried to connect tourism and music is when the Lake of Stars came on the scene.

The government, through all its departments that are concerned with ensuring that art – music inclusive – is getting the promotion it requires to shape out the country’s cultural identity has no deliberate policy to enforce anything like this.

Now, all what I desire to look at is in line with what is not strange to us all...Resident Band for hospitality facilities.

For fear of missing out on exactness and thoroughness, I will not mention the actual bands, but I know either currently or in the past hotels like Mount Soche, Ryalls etc. used to have a band that was contracted to be playing at these respective venues on specific days.

I know some where towards the end of last 2010, Sun Bird Mzuzu Hotel tried to enter into a deal with the defunct northern region musical giants; The Body, Mind and Soul to be playing on some days at the facility as a resident band.

Apparently, the deal fell through because the idea the hotel had, was that the band be a ‘magnet’ that should be attracting more customers to its Choma Bar. The patronage on the first two-trial-separate-days did not encourage them enough to continue with the deal.

There is a closeness that can be exploited between local music and tourism which can not only bring the much-needed forex into the country but can as well uplift the socio-economic status of artists.

Imagine if Agorosso was the resident artists for Mount Soche and purely there to sing the Shire Valley Genre that he plays; If Skeffa Chimoto with his Real Sounds band, was a resident band at Capital Hotel.

And by if extension Sunbird Mzuzu Hotel had stuck to the agreement with The Body Mind and Soul, a band that says it plays a fusion of foreign genres and local beat to create what they call voodjazz.

Say Hippo View Lodge had Anthu Ambiri band dishing out the Balaka beat that we all know.

Hospitality facilities have not taken advantage of the fact that music pulls and attracts people. The tourism industry could also benefit from the same.

The need to have resident music in hospitality facilities that would be identified with a particular traditional genre would drive someone from Australia to a specific hospitality place to listen to that kind of music and also buy the music.

The tourism industry could then go home and promote the music designated for what facility by producing MP3 samples of such tracks and post them with their background on Youtube or any other internet musical platform as well as the social media. With the digital demand in this era, there is need to create an internet presence and visibility.

Locally, there could also be promotion of such linkages where everyone else visiting Hippo View Lodge will know they will sample Balaka beat, likewise those that are visiting Capital Hotel will know it is time to discover what local music outfit has to offer.

Tourism which has worked elsewhere as a forex earner is still trying to score highly in this country. Vigorous promotions in away have not explored all the avenues.

With a government backed policy on the same, hospitality facilities can be incentivised by putting it down to them that if they will be promoting one of the local music genres by having a specific band that play such a specific genre the star grading system will consider it as one of the criteria, believe you me we can achieve something for both our struggling industries of music and tourism.