Tourism Institute calls for Synergy Between Government, Other Sectors
Margaret Ebeshi
The National President, National Institute for Tourism Professionals of Nigeria, ITPN, Mr. Abiodun Odusanwo has called for synergy between government agencies and other sub sectors involved in tourism drive in the country.
Mr. Odusanwo featuring on Voice of Nigeria’s, VON flagship News Magazine Programme programme “In The News” says tourism is a multi-sectoral activity that creates wealth for most nations of the world.
“For example, if you are looking for a particular tourist attraction, people need to get there by road or by air. For ensuring that those roads are passable is actually the work of another place entirely. And if you look into a single tourism activity for example like a festival happening somewhere like a town, then people will have to travel, that will stimulate our intension, people will have to buy clothes for that event, people will have to buy food. So, a single tourism activity can cause a spill-over effect on other sectors of the economy”.
In a bid to push the National President, National Institute for Tourism Professionals of Nigeria ITPN, mandate of using tourism as a tool for promoting and encouraging economic growth in the country, the Institute for Tourism Professionals of Nigeria, ITPN, is organizing the National Tourism Transport Summit and Expo in Abuja, Nigeria.
The two day summit with the theme “African Continental Free Trade Area, AfCFTA: Strengthening Connectivity, Effects and Partnership” is organized to galvanized ideas to generally improve the sector in Africa.
Mr. Odusanwo said that the summit is to ensure that “those in the tourism sector have the skills, training and the under-lining knowledge to drive and practice tourism successfully”.
He noted that there is connectivity between the tourism and transportation sectors, hence the need for the summit which was agreed to in 2017.
“The idea behind is just to promote connectivity between transport and tourism. When you talk about transportation we are looking at all modes of transport, whether be it’s by road, by air, by sea and other forms of transportation.
“if you look at the case of a typical traveler, maybe there is somewhere you have to drive canoe to get through that part, that form the part you now have to take road transport to get to the airport, from the airport you have to fly. You see that for a single traveler, you experience different modes of transportation that’s why there is need for connectivity between transportation and tourism sectors”.
In line with the AfCFTA, Mr. Odusanwo said that the summit will address collaborations between relevant gate keepers and standard control authorities such as immigration, customs and other vetenary controls.
“We have to train our people to have the skills to be able to one: increase the quality of production in Nigeria.
Two: get them trained so that they can even exploit their services as professionals. Instead of more or less just being there, that is why we are creating the awareness of the country, particularly those in tourism and transportation on the levels of collaboration that they need to develop, in terms of partnership they need to develop so that they can bring about wider economic development of this regime to Nigeria”. He said.
The National Tourism Transport Summit and Expo is taking place in Abuja, Nigeria will run from the 25th of April to the 26th of April, 2022 at the International Conference Centre.
