By Stanley Onyekwere
Minister of Tourism, Culture and National Orientation, Chief Edem Duke, has said that there is no official data on foreigners who come into the country for tourism.
He attributed the development to what he described as the non-activation of the nation's National Tourism Development master plan which is supposed to pave way for the generation of data for the sector.
Duke made the disclosure as guest on a current affairs programme "90 minutes" on AIT, and monitored in Abuja.
According to the Minister, an estimated 6,600 people enter the country everyday predominantly for
business purpose but there is no data on those on tourism traffic.
He said, "for now, it is predominantly business that propels traffic into Nigeria.
"So, if you get data on what the traffic into Nigeria is; some say about 6,600 people flying in and out of Nigeria every day, but we don't have the data for tourism, because the data for tourism is supposed to be generated as part of the activation of the National Tourism Development Masterplan.
We know why people will come for business; they want contracts in oil and gas; they want contracts in infrastructure; they want agriculture and so on; but if they want to come to Nigeria for tourism, what would be the fascination?"
According to him, "When we activate the master plan and develop the tourism satellite account, it gives us a platform to determine who is coming for business, and who is coming for leisure and entertainment; it is therefore important for us now to develop the critical elements of that fascination, and work diligently to attract them to come.
But we are not just going to mount the campaign and go to bed, as there must be other facilitations; there must be other things we need to activate; we must have marketing, promotion offices all over the world".
He said "South Africa has at least 26 offices around the world, and we don't have one yet; that is why we are trying to open up cultural centres around the world, so that we can use them for the dual purpose of also promoting tourism traffic into Nigeria."
The post No data on foreign tourists in Nigeria – Minister (http://peoplesdailyng.com/no-data-on-foreign-tourists-in-nigeria-minister/) appeared first on Peoples Daily Newspaper, Nigeria (http://peoplesdailyng.com).
Peoples Daily Newspaper