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Jonathan launches Tourism Master Plan today By Jimoh Babatunde Published Vanguard: Thursday, 18 October 2007 The much awaited Tourism Master Plan for Nigeria will be launched today in Abuja by the Vice President, Goodluck Jonathan, at a ceremony that is expected to be witnessed by stakeholders in the country as well as representatives from the United Nations’ World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO). As part of activities lined up for today’s launching of the Tourism Master Plan, the first ever Tourism Stakeholders Investment Forum was held yesterday in Abuja. The journey for what is to be launched today began in 1999 when the first Tourism Minister, Ojo Madueke, put together a team to fashion out the master plan for the country under the leadership of Dr. Franklin Adejuwon. Other members of that committee were Prof. M. O Filan, Dr. Kingsley T. Onuoha and Mr. Matts Da’Silva, among others. The Minister of Tourism, Culture and National Orientation, Prince Adetokunbo Kayode (SAN), under whose tenure this document is being launched today, has not hidden his desire to have the master plan for tourism out since he came on board in July. Speaking with journalists recently, he disclosed that after today's launching, that an implementation committee will be put in place immediately. The Minister, who promised to implement the master plan when launched, said “the tourism master plan will not be another good policy with bad implementation, but good policy and better implementation.” He said as far as he is concerned, the best tourism master plan produced by Dr. Franklin Adejuwon committee, with assistance from the Word Tourism Organisation (WTO) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), is the best in the world today as the plan “has a time line, which means there are short, mid and long terms and everything is marked out.” The Tourism Master Plan aims, among others, at raising responsible tourists, developing quality products, raising awareness of tourism benefits, reversing environmental decay and protecting historic assets. Aside this, the plan was conceived to be a partnership project for both the government and private sector, even as it is expected to reposition Nigerian tourism by promoting cultural and eco-tourism. The master plan, which targets diverse categories of tourists such as new experience seekers, Africans in diaspora, the expatriate community, families on holidays, among others, also requires a new regime of tourism management at all levels of government. For example, adequate funding of tourism should be guaranteed by the federal and state govern-ments, private sector (domestic), foreign private investment as well as other bodies like the UNDP, European Union, World Bank, bilateral government aids and the Nigerian Tourism Authority, better known as the Nigerian Tourism Development Corporation (NTDC). With a focus on five main strategies of boosting tourism, the master plan is designed to explore tropical rainforest, conference capital, Atlantic gateway, scenic nature and Sahara gateway. It is also targeted at a comprehensive marketing strategy involving local and interna-tional networking, integrated training scheme as well as a new platform for image laundering. Essentially, the Master Plan lists a number of tourist destinations/priority projects for which attention must be paid to enable the country reposition its tourism sector. These include the establishment of a tourism development fund, Olokola Culture Resort, coastal road to Olokola, slave routes, culture and tourism centre, Kano restoration, new investment brochure, Farin Ruwa Eco-tourism project and a new visa regime in favour of visitors. The investment forum was put together by Investcorp Acquisition Limited, a tourism deve-lopment consulting company in partnership with the Nigerian Investment Promotions Commission (NIPC). The Managing Director, Investcorp Acquisi-tion Limited, Mr. Taiwo Adepoju, said the forum, among other objectives, serves as a platform to examine the challenges of investing in the country’s tourism sector with the aim of fashioning appropriate solutions, while exhibiting the prospects of the industry. Speaking on the forum, Adepoju said it is in line with the President Yar’adua’s Seven Points Agenda. “In line with the President’s seven-point agenda, it is high time we started looking inward to see what we have. If you go to a place like Ghana, which is smaller than what we have here, you notice that almost everybody is gainfully employed by some means of tourism, so also in South Africa, the revenue is huge. He added that the meeting is an opportunity to talk about issues, challenges and problems in a way of repositioning the tourism sector as a major contributor to Nigerian economy. He however emphasised that it goes beyond the above issues, as the forum will also culminate into First Nigerian Tourism Investment Summit. “We never had one like this before. It is an opportunity for investors in such areas as real estate development, tourism and hospitality industry, among others to come in and interact on various means they can contribute towards the development of the sector.” Adepoju also reveals plans for tourism investment summit scheduled for March 2008 by the stakeholders. “We are planning a tour of the major countries of the world to sell Nigeria and also to tell them of the need to come and invest in Nigeria because the returns are high.” So, what we are looking at is the opportunity where we can bring in all stakeholders and identify some key areas so that we can chart a roadmap that will make foreigners get attracted and begin to indicate interest in investing in the country.” |
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