THE NEED TO UPLIFT THE NIGERIA’S TOURISM INDUSTRY AS
THE WORLD CELEBRATES THE WORLD TOURISM DAY,
TODAY SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 27, 2014
No doubt, observing a beautifully looking
environment remains one of the prime desires of every man. This is the reason
every able-bodied man works assiduously to ensure that his/her immediate
surroundings appear enticingly.
Tourism as an area of life or human endeavour is a sector that has, over
the decades, pays an optimum attention to how attractive our surroundings look
thereby making the sector to be globally recognized as an avenue for revenue
generation.
In a concise term, Tourism is the business activity connected with
provision of accommodation, entertainment, and other hospitable services for
people who are visiting a place for pleasure. In other words, a tourist can be
described as a person who is travelling or visiting a certain locality for the
sake of pleasure.
In the past, our heritages were being used by our ancestors as a means
of entertaining themselves as well as their visitors or guests. Presently, the
tourism industry has shown that these heritages can also be utilized as a
business venture having formally upgraded most of them to international
standard.
Noting the positive impact of the tourism industry the world over, it is
of no need reiterating the fact that it has contributed massively to the
ongoing socio-economic development of most nations. Analysts are of the view
that, the industry represents about nine percent (9%) of the global Gross
Domestic Product (GDP) and that it is a key revenue sector for developing and
emerging economies.
Indeed, tourism plays a very vital role in building blocks of a more
sustainable future for all, which is community development. Above all, it is
widely acknowledged for its capacity to respond to global challenges. In view
of this, there is an urgent need for Nigeria, which is a nation globally recognized
as the “Giant of Africa”, to follow suit towards ensuring that the World
Tourism Industry which helps to foster global unity is granted a preferential
treatment at all costs.
Nigeria can contribute her quota by ensuring that her socio-cultural
heritage is optimally uplifted. This proposed measure would not only help to
encourage the world tourism industry, but would also go a long way to elevate
the country’s Gross National Product (GNP), thus strengthening her economic
prowess.
Nigeria as an independent state is made up of over two hundred and fifty
ethnic groups; and each of these groups is tremendously blessed with various
socio-cultural heritages. These cultural heritages including dancing,
masquerading, dressing, hunting, fishing, wrestling, molding of sculptures,
inter alia, if well harnessed, would no doubt help to uplift the nation’s
Tourism Industry thereby boasting her socio-economic and political pride.
Today Saturday September 27, 2014, the world
over is celebrating the World Tourism Day. At its third session held in
Torremolinos – Spain in the year 1979, the United Nations Assembly mandated its
Member States to observe September 27 each year as the World Tourism Day,
having reached a unanimous resolution.
The day of the commemoration was chosen to coincide with an important historic milestone in the world’s tourism sector, which is the anniversary of the adoption of the UN Tourism Statutes on 27th of September 1970. The first commemoration of the World Tourism Day took place in 1980.
The timing of the World Tourism
Day is particularly appropriate, because it comes at the end of the high season
in the Northern hemisphere, and at the beginning of the season in the Southern
hemisphere when tourism is of topical interest to hundreds of thousands of
people worldwide.
The United Nations Conference on Sustainable
Development held in 2012 emphasized that well-designed and appropriately
managed tourism can make a significant contribution to the economic, social and
environmental dimensions of sustainable development. The Secretary General, Mr.
Ban Ki-moon further highlighted that, tourism which remains one of the world’s
largest economic sectors, is specially well-placed to promote environmental sustainability,
green-growth coupled with human struggle against climate change through its
relationship with energy.
As the international community celebrates the World Tourism Day today,
we are all expected to contribute our quota towards ensuring that our
respective environments or surroundings become globally recognized as
attractive and human friendly localities, so that, generations yet unborn
would live to remember that an
attractive environment is equally a revenue source.
In addition, the Nigerian government ought to note that it is high time
the country’s Tourist Industry is uplifted through the realization of the fact
that the Oil and Gas Industry may not last for eternity. To this end; embracing
diversification as regards the nation’s revenue generation or source is long
overdue. “A word is enough for the wise!”
COMR.
FRED NWAOZOR
Public
Affairs analyst & Social activist
________________________________
+2348028608056
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