Stakeholders Advocate Better Policies to Enhance Sustainable In-bound Tourism

Chinedu Eze

As foreigners, Nigerians in Diaspora and others are becoming interested in visiting the country, tourism stakeholders are advocating that government introduces policies that will encourage more people to come to the most populous country to boost in-bound tourism and attendant flow of more revenues from abroad.

The stakeholders who met during the launch of Travel Inn Booking at the Oriental Hotel, Lagos recently, urged governments at all levels to initiate policies that will enhance sustainable tourism, so that Nigeria will begin to earn more foreign exchange from the sector, which is the mainstay of earnings for some countries on the continent.

The stakeholders emphasised that existing policies that are positive should be enforced, while visa process should be liberalised to serve as incentive to genuine tourists and entrepreneurs who would want to visit Nigeria.

Speaking at the launch, the Managing Director, Metro Aviation, Tayo Orisadare, emphasised the importance of general aviation to tourism development,

“Over 40,000 aircraft are involved in general aviation while it offers about 4.2 million jobs globally but Nigeria needs to improve infrastructure to realise potential of general aviation because it has the penetrating ability to access hinterlands and places that people would not want to go to normally, high valued tourism is enhanced by general aviation. For instance, how do people get to Davos during the World Economic Forum? Sometimes by sea or by chartered flights, it has a lot to contribute to aviation,” he said.

Toni Ukachukwu, publisher, Aviators Africa, who spoke on Sustainable Tourism and Environmental Responsibility, urged Nigerians to be advocates of sustainability by practicing it in their homes, adding also that eco-tourism is one of the ways Nigerians can improve responsible tourism.

Also speaking, Professor Evidence Akhayere, an Environmental Scientist said, “Bottles and plastics are a threat to our environment but how much of awareness have we created in our communities on the fact that they are not going to decompose, how much do they know about the fact that they are not environmental friendly. It is either we stop producing plastics or we face the consequences. If we cannot dispose it properly, we should not use it”.