The director general of National Institute for Hospitality and Tourism (NIHOTOUR), Alhaji Nura Sani Kangiwa, has said that if properly explored, adequately harnessed and well managed, the Nigerian travel, tourism and hospitality industry has the potentials to tackle unemployment and curb the menace of insecurity that currently bedevils the country.
Kangiwa, who stated this when he received Abimbola Ogunlusi, Managing Director/CEO of QMDCI Hospitality and Tourism Institute on a courtesy visit at the NIHOTOUR headquarters in Abuja, said tourism industry is a very vast and versatile one that cuts across several skills and trades and can offer job to millions of unemployed youths thereby stopping them from being ready tools in the hands of men of the underworld to perpetuate criminalities in the land.
He said Nigeria is blessed with abundant tourism resources waiting to be tapped and utilised for the socio-economic good and benefits of the people.
“It is about time Nigerians realised the enormous economic benefits inherent in the tourism industry with the view to keying into it for job creation and poverty alleviation,” he said.
He promised to partner and collaborate with relevant stakeholders in both public and private sectors; individuals and organisations such as the QMDCI Hospitality and Tourism Institute in the efforts to impact skills and knowledge- based professional competence to youth in the promotion of travel, tourism and hospitality trades as a career for self-employment and self-reliance.
Earlier in her remarks, Ogunlusi stated that her visit to the director general was to solicit the institute’s support, cooperation and collaboration in the effort to take skills acquisition training to a substantial number of youth across the country. She said her institute is planning to host a national conference on hospitality and tourism industry to examine its operational practices with the view to identifying areas of deficiencies for both practitioners, viz-a-viz, employer-employee relationships.
