Nigeria woos investors, tourists at Berlin expo

[TGD]

 AMID pomp, the 47th edition of the international travel and tourism trade exhibition opened Wednesday in Berlin, Germany with Nigeria assuring tourists and investors of their safety and favourable business climate.

The prevailing question asked by the many visitors to the Nigeria's stand yesterday was how save the country was in view of the rising insecurity in the northern part of the country.

The Director General of the Nigerian Tourism Development Corporation (NTDC), Olusegun Runsewe had a Herculean task defending the country, as he assured the visitors of the safety and security of lives and property across the country, insisting that the Federal Government was atop the present security challenges facing the country.

According to the DG, ''there is other country in the world as safe as Nigeria, as the security issue is only limited to few states in the northern part of the country and the Federal Government is very serious and proactive in handling the situation."

He added: ''Please come to Nigeria, your investment is safe and your life too is safe. No one will harm any of you visitors and investors as this government is very serious about welcoming genuine investors and visitors to the county."

Furthermore, he gave a personal guarantee that NTDC would ensure the security and welfare of tourists whenever they visited the country.

Nigeria, he said, was blessed with abundant resources, especially in the area of tourism and that given the over 160 million population of the country, investors would have nothing to fear as they had ready market for their products and services for the visitors, he said they would have new experiences as they enjoyed the culture and natural beauty of the land besides the growing numbers of sophisticated facilities in the hospitality sector.

 

Runsewe also used the occasion to visit Nigeria's stand daily as they would be treated to a lot of well-packaged products specially made for the expo.

According to him, the Nigerian Day celebration, which is billed to hold on Saturday, was dedicated to celebrating the victory of the national team, the Super Eagles even as he revealed that it would also be used to appreciate Africa countries, which supported Nigeria during the just concluded AFCON 2013 in South Africa where Nigeria emerged champions of Africa.



The Guardian