Expert Harps on Tourism’s contribution to Economic Development
By Ebere Chibuzor
Tourism sector generate a major contribution to Nigeria economy. The sector generated about 5.1 offering to national GDP.
About 20 percent jobs are maintained by the tourism industry in which majority of the jobs are directly employed in the sector with some indirectly.
At the same time, however, tourism income of Nigeria has considerably reduced drastically due to high risk of security in some part of the country and now covid 19 resurgences.
This was the revelation made by Leawood Hotel, Human Resource Manager Godwin Abah, who also called Nigeria government to establish good governance with tourism practitioners by requested that Federal Government to reverse the current Value Added Tax (VAT) from 7.5 percent to the former five percent in order to boost businesses.
According to Abah, the tension created by the deadly covid-19 in the economy is yet to douse as businesses are still facing hardship in the land.
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Although, the government is not folding its hands either in ensuring that the country’s economy gets started following a stimulus package for businesses in order to reinstate the fragile and which hotels are one of them, anxiety is still trailing the 7.5 percent VAT imposed by government at the beginning of 2020.
“The expenses is high and we have to adhere to covid 19 rules of no crowd and we have to accommodate only two people in the room and that has been affecting the revenues.
We have been experiencing double taxation from federal , state and local governments. Meanwhile, he appealed that government at all levels in Nigeria to always put other stakeholders into consideration while taking certain decision
On covid protocol: We have sanitisers and we try as much as possible to ensure our clients wash your hands regularly.
The event in the hotel is skeletal to reduce crowd. The meals are affordable and quality, while the unique thing about the hotel is the serene environment.
In Leawood hotel the guests are not allow to smoke in the room and failure to comply to the stipulated rule will attract instant file of 100.000 naira for such guests. We do not have much crowd and the hotel facilities include bush bar, spot bar and lounge and many others.
Security is paramount in Leawood Hotel. The rooms are affordable, whereas in house guests are entitled to free breakfast. The rooms ranges from classic, standard and executive rooms.
The challenge is money as our sales have dropped after covid, the fact remain people are scared of patronising hostels and we need government to support the sector with grants or with tax holiday to sustain businesses.
We have foreign guests as tourist who visited and are still visiting and they have a way of spending hugely.
