Handshaking is customary. Casual wear is widely suitable. Women should avoid wearing revealing clothes. Traditional beliefs and Muslim customs should be respected.

Photography: Permits are required for photography and filming, and can be obtained from police stations. Tour operators and tourist bureaux are often able to make arrangements. Film is expensive and local facilities for processing film are not always good. Ask local people for permission before taking their photographs. Military installations, airports and administrative buildings (including the Presidential Palace) should not be photographed.

LANGUAGE

The official languages are French and Arabic. Also spoken are Hausa (by half of the population), Djerma, Fulani, Manga, Zarma and Tuareg dialects.

TOURISM

Tourism is not yet a highly developed industry in Niger, but this is in no way due to a lack of interesting sites or the desire of the authorities to promote this sector. Niger at the crossroads between the Maghred and Black Africa, is also a melting pot of races and ethnic groups. Its landscapes provide the traveler with constant visual surprises; magnificent wooded plains, beautiful fertile valleys, contrasting dramatically with the Sahelian steppeland and the endless vistas of the Sahara with its amazing chains of towering sand dunes. The grandiose Air Massif and its many escarpments overlooking the desert, offers yet another striking landscape.

One of the most impressing features of the country is the quality of the light and the hospitality of its friendly inhabitants. In Niger every guest is a King.

There is a number of tourist circuits to choose from, depending on the tastes and amount of time available to the tourist,all of them equally interesting and attractive. But the visitor is well advised to tour by road if he really wants to appreciate the changing beauties of the country

NIAMEY, the capital, offers a highly colorful market selling everything from cabbages to camel harness, an extremely original and famed national museum and Zoo visited not only by Tourists but by citizens of Niamey and people who have come in from countryside.

There are several pavilions displaying craftwork and items of historical interest from different parts of the country, examples of typical housing and artisans workshops, where skilled craftsmen make jewelry , leathergoods, wood carvings and very beautiful pottery.

A trip by motorised or traditional dug-out canoe up the Niger River from Niamey will give always the opportunity to see the hippopotami, while in the approaches of Tillabery, graceful giraffes may provide prize shots for photography enthusiasts. Further on again is Ayerou, with its islands and their Woggo Villages, its colorful market, its veiled and turbanned nomads.

The “W’ National Park is the paradise of local fauna such as crocodiles, hippopotami, antelopes, even lions, elephants and countless birds.

Agadez, the ancient caravan center, is the meeting point of all the TUAREGS tubes. this city has preserved the prestige and originality coffered on it by its illustrious history. Its famous 16th century mosque, is one of the centers of islamic pilgrimage. Close by it is the market where Tuaregs and Hausa merchants offer engraved silver jewelry, camel-hair blankets, leather bags, blocks of salt, and completely authentic Agadez and Iferouane crosses. A few kilometers outside the town is the well-known Tafadek thermal spring, where people suffering from various complaints come from other parts of Africa to seek the benefits of its warm waters.