Mohammed Haruna Yusuf
31 October 2008
Tourism is a crucial tool playing essential role to promote and fast track economic growth and community development in the country, the Special Adviser to the President on NEPAD, has said.
Ambassador Tunji Olagunju made this remark, Thursday at the occasion of a national dialogue on "Sustainable Tourism Development: A Vehicle for Poverty Alleviation and Wealth Creation", in Abuja.
Olagunju said that, "in developing the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), strategic policy framework, due recognition should be given to tourism as an essential instrument to open the continent to foreign markets."
He said that tourism is being conceived as a useful mechanism to promote economic growth and community development both of which is to be driven by private sector initiatives, noting that Nigeria now has a National Tourism Master plan and indeed a strategic vision about tourism as evidenced in the wealth creation programme of this administration."
According to him, the NEPAD action plan urges each member state of the African Union (AU) to conduct an analytical baseline study on the potential role of tourism to fast track economic growth by identifying on-going initiatives and how their implementation can promote tourism.
The Special Adviser stressed that the forum provides the opportunity for all stakeholders to dialogue and translate that vision into creating conditions for sustainable private investment in tourism and people-centered development.
He expressed fears over the non implementation of programmes and projects', pointing out that the National Master Plan has identified the need for institutional building to solve this problem by strengthening and developing of institutions at national, state and local government levels to promote tourism.
"In order to address this issue further, we will like to suggest the need for participants in this dialogue to pay proper attention to the twin issues of political support and marketing of destinations and products. The latter is critical to the image and role of our country in the comity of nations."
Olagunju said that the country requires coordination and coherent planning for effective delivery of services adding that there is need to develop a programme of community consciousness in response to tourism as opportunities for wealth creation.
"We need to have this dialogue to translate the innate qualities of the warmth, friendliness and hospitality of our communities into tourist attractions", he said.
In his remarks, the Director, Programme Development and Implementation of NEPAD, Mr. Emmanuel Ogbile, who was represented by Dr. Roy Ugoh, said that tourism is domiciled in the environment cluster, adding that the World Tourism Organization scored the highest among priority areas in Africa.
"Indeed, there is need to consider this aspect of tourism so that the nation can take a cue and move in unity with its sister countries in the continent that have developed their tourism industry, thus creating skilled and unskilled jobs for their citizens.
NEPAD Nigeria is therefore poised to facilitate the growth of tourism and in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Tourism, Culture and National Orientation to move the tourism industry in Nigeria and indeed the African continent forward and to obtain a sustainable share of the global tourism market which will evolve into the creation of more jobs. This is a collective responsibility.
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