Tours 'a great cultural experience' says Futoshi

Koga Futoshi, the arts and cultural writer for one of Japan's leading newspapers The Asahi Shimbun, said the scheduled guided mosque tours introduced by the Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority are "a great cultural experience".

Futoshi's comments came as he completed a guided tour with one of several UAE national tourist guides the ADTA has trained specifically for the tours, which will run from Saturday to Thursday from next month.

"I fully intend to recommend this tour on my return to Japan. It has everything the Japanese tourist is looking for - detailed knowledge of religion and heritage informed by extremely helpful national guides.

"I found it to be a great cultural experience, particularly as we do not have a large Muslim population in Japan and know little about the religion - the detail was tremendous and made the tour worthwhile. In addition, the mosque is incredibly beautiful and there are few sites in the world that can compete with the level of intricacy of architecture and design".

The ADTA has launched guided tours of the mosque, named in honour of Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the late UAE President and Ruler of Abu Dhabi, to promote greater cross-cultural religious and heritage understanding.

"A pre-view launch to the media has brought tremendous feedback, in particular about the UAE national tourist guides," explained Nasser Saif Al Reyami, Director of ADTA's Licensing and Classification Division. "Their enthusiasm and passion for the subject, their country and its traditions really transforms the tourism experience".