Nigeria’s Tourism Agency Welcomes Oronsaye Report

As staff of many Ministries, Departments and Agencies under the employ of the Federal Government face an uncertain future following the directive by President Muhammadu Buhari for the implementation of the recommendations by the Presidential Panel on Rationalisation and Restructuring of Federal Government Parastatals headed by Mr. Steve Oronsaye, former Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, the leadership of the Nigeria Tourism Development Corporation (NTDC) has welcome the exercise which is due to commence in October 2020.

The Executive Summary of the Oronsaye Report, recommends that the NTDC should be fully commercialised and seeks to shape a new direction for tourism management in Nigeria so as to minimize bureaucratic red tape and ensure that the country’s tourism potentials are effectively harnessed for national unity and development.

Experts have suggested that with a Presidential Executive Order, many policies would be pushed to re-flate the economy faster through tourism. The tourism industry in Nigeria today requires urgent funding and direct investment especially from the public sector.

With the diversification of the economy becoming mandatory for the growth of the country, tourism, unarguably, is seen as one of the fastest ways out of the doldrums.

Private investors would be more assured if they can be certain of the Presidency role in tourism development. They believe that the President can order everyone including Immigration, Customs and embassies, while a minister cannot as he or she would still require the President’s approval.

More so, for those who canvassed for the status quo to be reviewed, moving NTDC to the direct supervision of the Presidency will afford it better international recognition and make it easier to market Nigeria’s tourism potentials at international conferences and events. It will as well market Nigeria as the foremost destination in Africa.

In most of these countries that have harnessed their tourism potentials, the norm is to create a stand-alone department, agency or parastatal in charge of all matters relating to tourism.

Examples include the Singapore Tourism Board, Kenyan Tourism Board, Tanzania Tourism Bureau, Namibia Tourism Board and the South African Tourism Board. The head of these boards, in turn, report directly to their Presidents or heads of the government in view of tourism’s hydra-headed nature, yet yielding substantial returns to grow their GDPs.

In Nigeria, tourism accounts for only 1.7 per cent of National GDP. This is abysmally low in view of the myriad tourism potentials that exist across the breadth of the federation.
However, experts have annexed this problem to the fact that in Nigeria, a very important agency like NTDC with the responsibility to implement and execute all federal government tourism policies, has been reduced to a miniature agency under the Ministry of Information and Culture —whose minister also supervises 21 other agencies of government.

This has led to a lot of bureaucratic red tape and a very slow pace of getting things done. The situation becomes blurrier when it was later realized that tourism is not even captured in the functions of the Ministry of Information and Culture.
 
However, as the industry faces a new post-COVID-19 reality where countries would be vying for the hearts and minds of wary tourists, it will no longer be business as usual. Mr. Folorunsho Coker, Director General of the NTDC and his team are ready.

He said, “As a nation, we need to consider and deploy innovative recovery solutions that are home grown and practical, tailor made for our specific environment and people.

They are in three possible policy thrusts: Healing for the People, Healing for Prosperity and Healing for Destinations —Health, Employment and Environment.”

But achieving this with NTDC, as an agency under a ministry, might be a Herculean task.

Travel and tourism is a labour-intensive industry. Its economic and social footprint is greater than that of any other economic sector. The pandemic has already created changes on many fronts and the possibilities for innovative solutions or consolidation of services abound.

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Because of its multi-sectoral nature, tourism has been seen as the new oil with most forward thinking nations leveraging on it to reap economic benefits and grow their economies whilst also improving the quality of their infrastructure and the livelihood of their citizens.

Side-by-side with other sectors of the economy, Coker’s view is very relevant. With scores of professionals and millions of workers active in the myriad of sub-segments of the very extensive tourism industry, the NTDC boss is kept on his toes constantly in response to the demands of his office.

The government tourism agency manager strongly wishes to draw attention to industries that had a set of players whose incomes were tied to services that have been put under lock and key.

According to him, a lot of people seem not to reckon with the financial dividends that come from tourism, entertainment and creative-related activities that encompass concerts, hotels, night clubs, drinking joints, art shops, culture hubs, book shops, hair salons, tailoring services, transportation and laundry services to mention a few. Its 2018 revenue suggested that this sector generated cash transactions of over N50 billion in Lagos alone.

For these industry stakeholders, the COVID-19 lockdown is a horrific economic nightmare they wish to wake up from. But once this present shutdown thaws, the tourism sector is expected to roar back to life, albeit gradually.

Given the new normal expected in the post COVID-19 travel and tourism industry, an NTDC under a direct supervision of the Presidency will be expeditious in delivering its responsibilities.

According to Coker, priority position will be placed on tourism, thereby sending a message to the international community that Nigeria is ready for tourism, as well as sensitizing Nigerians on the need to embrace tourism for job creation, poverty alleviation and overall improvement of the economy.“

If suitable strategies are deployed, tourism can emerge from this current crisis as an even more important contributor to the 2030 Agenda of the Sustainable Development Goals, supporting livelihoods and creating opportunities for millions of people around the world and leaving nobody behind,” the NTDC boss summed.