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Following the United Nations and World Tourism Organisation’s petition to Nigeria on the obsolete policy of its tourism industry, the Federal Government has disclosed that it is ready to overhaul the whole tourism policy framework established in 2005 under President Olusegun Obasanjo. This is aimed at boosting Foreign Direct Investments (FDIs) and catalysing the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
Minister of Tourism, Mrs. Lola AdeJohn, who made this known to Newsmen, said that the large document on tourism policy framework was due for review and that government would be summoning critical stakeholders in the tourism industry to look at ways to amend and fine-tune the document in line with international conventions guiding the industry.
Ade-John explained that the framework was no longer in vogue, saying that orchestrated the United Nations and World Tourism Organisation to write Nigeria on the need to review the policy.
She said: “Well, the whole document is large and I looked at it last September, and shook my head and you know we agreed that we split it into different sections and then invite some stakeholders to look at the different sections of the policy. “I didn’t dwell too much on the contents.
So not that we are picking sections, it’s the whole document. It’s quite big and it was done during the administration of General Olusegun Obasanjo.
“It was a marvelous job they did at the time, but 2005 to date, it’s quite awhile so there is no point in picking certain things.
” While speaking on the state of Nigeria’s tourism in the first year of President Bola Tinubu’s administration, the Tourism Minister said:“In the past, tourism was embedded in another ministry and we had some ministers that were very progressive in what was being done and then I think that there was some advocacy for the ministry to stand alone and not only that the president took notice of that and ensure that among his ministers there are gender equality to give opportunity to women and to also feature in his cabinet.
“So when we talk about what we have done in the first year in the country’s tourism industry, we spent quite a while reviewing some of the things that have been going on in the past and we are aware that some were in the tourism policy that was established between 2005 and 2007 in the previous administration that has not been outdated.
“The United Nations and World Tourism Organisation had written to us that it needed to be updated and so in the past few months, we have been reviewing the tourism policy and I think the first draft will be on my table today or tomorrow and from then we will see the gaps in the policy and also come up with a committee to make recommendations for the policy.
“Not only that, we used to have a Presidential Tourism Council that is the highest body for tourism related matters.
We discussed it with Mr. President and we are waiting for that Council to be inaugurated.
“We’ve spent some times because we still have to be in the office but we’ve gone to some of the tourist assets and we are aware that some of our tourism assets are moribund and we’ve gone to few of them and am pleased to announce that some states in Nigeria are taking tourism seriously.
She added: “The governors in some of these states are making use of the assets and they brought investors to build up their tourism assets.
“You know in the past years, there has been interest in ensuring that tourism takes place as a revenue driver in the country. “In fact, the goal is that if everything goes right, the revenue from tourism should be the number one revenue generator in the country. What we’ve done also, we are reviewing the re-classification of hotels in the tourism accommodation and establishments and that has just started and we are looking to ensuring that"
