By Daniel Adeleye
The CEO of Aerovessel Group and Chairman, Institute of Tourism Professional of Nigeria (ITPN), Ogun state chapter, Hon. Abolaji Kelani has appealed to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to carve out the Ministry of Tourism from the Ministry of Information and Culture as it was obtained in the immediate past administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari.
He said creating a ministry of Tourism and Culture with a tourism enthusiast as a minister will enhance the growth of tourist attractions in Nigeria and cater for the economic opportunities embedded in the tourism industry in the country.
The tourism and hospitality expert made the appeal last week in his office in Ota, while showing round newsmen to inspect materials for an upcoming empowerment programme for 70 youths in the hospitality industry in Ado-Odo Ota state constituency.
Kelani, who noted that Nigeria is richly endowed with tourist attractions in all 36 states of the country and FCT, emphasised the need to tackle insecurity and infrastructure gap in the country, to safeguard lives and properties of tourists when they visit.
He identified poor marketing as another challenge facing tourism in Nigeria, noting Nigeria has better tourist attractions than some other African countries, such as Kenya where tourism has become a major foreign exchange earner.
He said tourism as an economic development tool, has become the largest industry in the world with nearly 500 million consumers of tourism services spending hundreds of billion dollars per year.
“Tourism has impacted lives in Nigeria and the diaspora. The rebirth of tourism after COVID 19 pandemic proved that tourism remains number one in the world. Today, not only Nigeria, the middle-east too are having challenges in oil and gas, but after COVID 19 normalcy has returned to tourism.
“There are opportunities abound in the tourism industry if the government can also focus attention on it. If foreigners come, they will buy tickets, book for hotel accommodation, they will move from one destination to another and they will eat. All these will contribute to our economy,” he said.
Giving the overview of the empowerment training, the tourism expert said he came up with the idea in order to reduce unemployment rate among the youths of his constituency and to also add value to them.