Photo Caption: From left, Director, National Council for Arts and Culture (NCAC), Sam Agbi, representing the Director-General (NCAC) Otunba Runsewe; DG/CEO, National Institute of Hospitality and Tourism (NIHOTOUR) Mrs Chika Balogun; and MD/CEO, Transcorp Hotel Plc, Valentine Ozigbo at the National Tourism Transport Summit and Expo yesterday in Abuja.
Valentine Ozigbo, Managing Director and Chief Executive of Transcorp Hotels Plc, wants government at all levels to pay more attention to tourism sector given its potential in helping to actualize and broaden the Nigeria’s ongoing economic diversification efforts.
Speaking at a national tourism transport summit and expo in Abuja, on Tuesday, May 22, 2018, Ozigbo said scant attention to the sector is daily demonstrated by its abysmal marketing by relevant ministries and agencies of government.
To change the narrative, he therefore charged relevant ministries and agencies of government at the federal and state levels to spearhead the marketing of tourism in the country, thereby helping to leapfrog the sector into a major revenue earner.
Ozigbo, who was a panel discussant in one of the sessions of the event on “Marketing Destinations in Nigeria: What Role for the Transportation and Tourism Sectors, stressed that: ‘‘If well harnessed, the tourism sector, with its vast potential, could displace oil as the nation’s highest revenue earner.”
Everywhere in the world, he continued, governments play the critical role of enablers and marketers of the tourism sector, while the private sector drives the process.
As part of that symbiotic relationship, he believes the government should spearhead the marketing role, noting that the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, for instance was expected to be the chief marketing officer of the tourism potential in the nation’s capital.
According to him, doing so would equip the minister with the challenges in the sector and propel him to seek solutions with a view to boosting it, lamenting that in the absence of a potent marketing of the tourism potential in the FCT, Transcorp Hotels Plc had gone out of its way to ensure customers are availed of the pleasure of visiting some tourism sites in the FCT.
“In Transcorp, we’re not only serving our customers, but selling the city. We’ve been putting together tourism destinations. Our job will be made easier when the government plays their role,” he said.
He also recalled the strides of a former governor of Cross River State, Donald Duke in marketing the tourism potential of that state, which eventually etched the Obudu Resort and other sites in the state on the global map.
