A chieftain of the National Association of Nigeria Travel Agencies (NANTA) has urged the federal government to explore the country’s rich tourism potentials considering the fast pace of automobile technology which might soon reduce the relevance of crude oil where the country derives major revenues to drive the economy.
The Vice President NANTA, Western Zone, Dagunduro Olatokunbo made the call while recently delivering a paper tagged ‘Prospective Career and Opportunities in Tours & Travel Business’ at the departmental week of Wildlife and Ecotourism Students Society of the University of Ibadan.
He described tourism as one of the highest and most popular employers of labour in the world, saying “lately many nations of the world are facing the reality of diversifying its economic drive and viability towards tourism as a major source of growing its GDP through internally generated revenue.
“Countries like United Arab Emirates, South Africa, France, Kenya, Gambia, Rwanda, United States of America, India, Brazil to mention a few have all given the much needed attention to tourism and their economies are doing well through it”, he noted.
He continued “The need for our government at all tiers to begin to harness and give the enabling environment for tourism to strive is now. Since the last decade, many OPEC countries have seen that Oil is becoming exhaustible while tourism is sustainable. I will limit my scope to our beloved country Nigeria the most populous black nation in the world.
“Nigeria’s major source of revenue, which is crude oil, is gradually drying up and in some year from now the advanced countries is hopeful their automobile industry will run on water, electric energy and light energy. Therefore, within ten years from now crude oil might be very outdated. The need for our country to take tourism more serious is now”, the CEO, Rhapsody Travels & Tours Ibadan, averred.
He advised Nigerian leaders to first review the separation of the aviation ministry from culture and tourism ministry by considering the two together, claiming that without aviation there won’t be tourism and vice versa.
“The passion for a better tourism sector is for the government to allow stakeholders to position the sector rightly while the government regulates without playing politics with the industry,” Dagunduro noted.
Packaged by Olanrewaju Agiri
