NAN-H-42
Tourism
By Collins Yakubu-Hammer
Abuja, July 20, 2017 (NAN) The Federation of Tourism Associations of Nigeria (FTAN) says it is poised to stimulate domestic tourism to create employment and boost internally generated revenue for government and host communities.
Alhaji Saleh Rabo, the newly elected president of the association made this known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday in Abuja.
Rabo said that tourism had the potentialities to generate huge revenue for the government and providing employment for the people.
“We must get it right with domestic tourism market before expecting foreign tourists to come in droves.
“We will do a research and the findings will help us identify Nigeria’s tourist market abroad.
“Our main tourist attraction is the diversity of our cultural heritage.
“In marketing Nigeria, we will ascertain countries interested in Africa and execute targeted marketing and promotions at those countries.
“This will include road shows, exhibition and rigorous advertisement and social media marketing campaigns; we will emphasise giving tourists exactly the experience we promised them when marketing our tourism destinations,’’ Rabo said.
He said that the association’s determined goal was to richly grow the domestic tourism market in the country.
Rabo, who is also the Managing Director, All States Travel and Tour Ltd., said the association aimed at ensuring significant improvement in the hospitality services, enrich destinations and tourist facilities.
“We also want to see an increase in the number of recorded tourist arrivals at the country’s tourist sites and a significant increase in the contribution of tourism to Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product and other internally generated revenues.
“Our other strategy is to systematically involve local host communities in the day-to-day handling of tourism sites and the tourists.
“The host communities will contribute to tourism activities in their localities in terms of primary food chains supply, tour guides, security vigilante, souvenirs and handcraft sales, traditional entertainment and other direct tourism services.
“Nevertheless, we will proactively engage state governments’ apparatus to organise tourists for the host communities, collect taxes and other levies, which in turn shall be shared with the host communities,’’ Rabo said.
According to him, the aim is for the host communities to participate as stakeholders in the state government’s tourism ventures.
He said that the most effective way to get the communities to totally buy-in was for the state government to give some percentage of revenue generated at the tourist host communities back to them.
“In doing such, the communities will see the success of their community as a tourist destination and this is pivotal to eradicating poverty, creating employment and improving their collective livelihood,’’ Rabo said. (NAN)
CMY/FLP/GY
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Edited by Folorunso Poroye/Grace Yussuf