MEETINGS, Incentives, Conference and Exhibition (MICE) has always been one of the ways destinations all over the world boost their tourism traffic. Nigeria was at the forefront of MICE many years ago.
However, for some years now, countries like Ghana, South Africa and recently Rwanda have overtaken Nigeria as Africa’s leading conference destination. The recently concluded 61st United Nations World Tourism Organisation Commission for Africa (UNWTO-CAF) meeting held in Nigeria offered Nigeria the opportunity to re-assert its position as a leading conference host. The Ministry of Information and Culture, led by Alhaji Lai Mohammed, put a well-organized conference that the Secretary-General of the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO), Mr. Zurab Pololikashvili, described the conference in Abuja as one of the most successful events of the global body.
The Secretary-General made the remarks in Abuja on Tuesday at a joint press conference with the Minister of Information and Culture. He said the UNWTO would leverage on the success of the meeting to promote Nigeria to become a top tourist destination in the world and commended the minister for putting Nigeria on the global tourism map.
“Thanks to the minister that is pushing Nigeria as a new tourist destination. We are here to support Nigeria to be the most important and most attractive place to come to visit to enjoy the culture,” Mr. Pololikashvili said.
The meeting was declared open by the President Mohammadu Buhari represented by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha. President Buhari said: “The theme: ‘Tourism Statistics – A Catalyst for Development’ is apt and could not have come at a better time than now, considering the significance of the Tourism Statistics and Tourism Satellite Account (TSA) in measuring the contribution of the tourism sector to the national economy.
“The importance of tourism and its potential to national economies cannot be overemphasized. Tourism, as we all know, contributes to the wealth of nations and the well-being of citizens, largely through foreign exchange earnings, generation of revenue, creation of employment, knowledge, cultural integration as well as increase the GDP of the country.
“We are making steady efforts to diversify the economy through agriculture, solid minerals development and tourism. We are also investing heavily in infrastructure to promote tourism. This administration has injected about US$9 billion to strengthen its investment in power, roads and railway in the past two years alone.
“Also, this government is investing in Social Investment Programme (SIP) to promote human capital development which has benefitted over 9 million people. These programmes include our Home-Grown School Feeding Programme that is providing one meal a day to 7.4 million pupils in 22 states of the federation; N-Power programme that has employed 200,000 university graduates and is about to employ 300,000 more; the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) under which some 297,973 poor homes are receiving 5,000 Naira monthly; and the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP) that has provided loans to hundreds of thousands of small business owners.
“The government is committed to providing public safety and security to all Nigerians, investors and tourists. Government is also investing a lot of resources in building the inventory of equipment and capacity of security agencies to keep the country safe.”
Alhaji Mohammed, in his welcome speech, said in view of the importance of tourism, it has become for many member states as a source of foreign exchange, employment generation and income creation, in addition to encouraging infrastructural development and poverty reduction, in Nigeria, it is one of the sectors the government has identified as key to economic diversification agenda.
He spoke further: “The sustained growth of the tourism industry illustrates how this all-important sector, with its added advantage of infinitude, can assist member states’ economies to reap the benefits of globalization.
“This meeting, therefore, provides an excellent opportunity to discuss ways and means to promote intra-Africa travels and tourism, leveraging on our vast and unique resources and our number, for mutual benefit to all member states. It is my expectation that this meeting will also serve as a platform towards establishing stronger linkages and functional collaboration among member states in order to realize the potentials with which the continent is endowed with.
“ On our part, as a country, we are doing everything possible to move the tourism sector into the mainstream of the economy. Realizing that modern infrastructure is critical to tourism development, we are investing heavily in the development of infrastructure. In the last two years alone, we have spent an unprecedented 9 billion US Dollars to build roads, standard railways and power. The investment is showing, as we have raised our power generation from 2,690 to 7,000MW, while road construction is going on in every of the country’s 36 states.”
The Secretary-General, had before the meeting paid President Buhari a visit, also said the commitment shown by the President Buhari to tourism development has motivated the UNWTO to renew its interest in Nigeria. He commended the administration’s visa on arrival policy which, he said, has made Nigeria one of the most accessible countries and urged other countries to emulate the policy.
Pololikashvili said the meeting in Nigeria would provide a veritable platform to discuss and articulate concrete steps towards the development of tourism on the continent.
“We had very interesting discussions with ministers and we made very concrete decisions on how to continue and how to work with African Continent, which has full support from our organization, and we are very glad that we are going in the right way.
“We have an ambitious plan. We want to promote Africa as one of the main and most important tourism destinations in the world,” he said.
The meeting, which had a about 160 delegates from 31 African countries, also had the tourism ministers from 26 African states in attendance.
The delegated where treated to evenings of stage plays, music, cultural displays and taste of Nigerian music cuisines.