The National Association of Nigeria Travel Agencies (NANTA) has urged the Federal Government to focus more on the tourism and aviation sectors, to further reduce the country’s dependence on oil.
NANTA also called on state governments’ to promote and develop the tourism potential in their domains, in order to benefit from the gains.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that NANTA’s President, Bernard Bankole, made the call while speaking with newsmen on Wednesday in Lagos.
Bankole added that Nigeria was blessed with many veritable tourist sites which were still not fully utilised for the benefit of the nation.
He said: “the only way we can grow tourism in Nigeria is to ensure that we have an almost perfect aviation industry and I have discussed it with the minister, Sen. Hadi Sirika.
“I believe that aviation and tourism need to be linked together if we are to get the benefits we really desire from tourism.
“Tourism is one of the sectors that can take this economy out of recession.
“It is high time government de-emphasises dependence on oil revenue and starts to look at non-oil revenue and tourism is one of such areas.
“It can help to bring us out of this present circumstance we have found ourselves as a nation and we will continue to call the government’s attention to it.”
According to him, while some states like Lagos and Cross River were already cashing in on revenue accruing from tourism, and there is need for more states to tap into the sector.
“All the states have the facilities and don’t need to borrow money to enhance their tourism facilities.
“So we can start with domestic tourism and we pray that the governments will listen to us,’’ Bankole said.
He also debunked claims that Nigeria was not safe for tourists, stressing that some countries with worse security situations were still attracting tourists in high numbers.
“For example, in spite of attacks by terrorists in Kenya and Tunisia and even Turkey, their tourism sectors are still growing. So I think it is wrong for us to say we will not develop our tourism industry because of insecurity.
“We have to continue to promote tourism, whether we have security challenges or not. It is our responsibility to let the world know that Nigeria is not under the siege of Boko Haram.
“To God be the glory; today, the Sambisa forest has been captured by our military and nobody is now making so much noise about it.
“So I am appealing to the media to do away with negative reports and learn how to promote the country in the right ways, so that tourism will thrive,” the NANTA president added.
