By Ajibola Adedoye
The quarterly tourism parliament organized by the Association of Travel and Tourism Writers of Nigeria, (ATTWON) earlier scheduled to take place today, Monday 1st of May 2023 has been postponed.
Disclosing this in an exclusive interview with Daily Insight Nigeria, President of ATTWON, Mr. Ayo Omotoso, said today being Workers’ Day, the association decided to agree to hold the session on Thursday, 18th May, 2023 at same venue, CitiHeight Luxury Hotel, Ikeja,
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Mr. Omotoso while explaining the rationale behind the event said “when I assumed the position of the President ATTWON in June 2021, I have to look at the track record of my predecessor who have done so much for the association, I have to consolidate on that and by so doing we have to look at a viable programme that will bring all the tourism stakeholders and all the tourism aficionados on board to talk about all the trending topics as regards to tourism industry in Nigeria. We created tourism parliament, so that people will come together to proffer solutions to any trending tourism issues in Nigeria”
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“In the past 3 edition of the parliament it has been a success story so far. During the first edition we asked ourselves the question, is tourism a profitable business, the answer is Yes and we brought a lot of stakeholders such as the largest art collector in Africa, Prince Yemisi Shyllon to share his experience with us, also we invited the current Vice President, South-West Zone of Institute for Tourism Professionals of Nigeria (ITPN) Otunba Ayodele Michael Olumoko among others who rubbed minds together and agreed that tourism is a viable business if the government of the day see to it and do the needful” he opined.
The ATTWON President stressed further that “during the second edition we talked about the security challenges in Nigeria where we lots of security experts from different industries that came and looked at how to improve the level of security and how to improve on it. So the successes achieved with the parliament are numerous and a lot of people are always looking forward to our quarterly tourism parliament”.
According to him, this earlier scheduled for today, now coming up on Thursday, 18th of May, 2023 at CitiHeight Luxury Hotel, Ikeja with lots of dignitaries expected to grace the occasion such as former Commissioner for Culture and Tourism and former Director-General Nigerian Tourism Development Corporation (NTDC), Mrs. Sally Mbanefo, the Vice President, South-West Zone of Institute for Tourism Professionals of Nigeria (ITPN), Otunba Ayodele Michael Olumoko, the veteran journalist, Ambassador Wale Ojo-Lanre among others as members of the parliament for the day.
Mr. Omotoso said “ATTWON is setting tourism agenda for the incoming administration and we want Nigerians to see tourism as an alternative to oil. Apart from the tourism stakeholders from different associations, local government tourism officers even the youths and hoteliers are expected to be part of the programme on that day”.
The ATTWON President however admonished the president-elect Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu to take tourism serious by creating a separate ministry that will take care of tourism industry and stop mixing it up with others, he said “information and culture is quite different from tourism. In other climes they have separate ministry of tourism so government must see tourism as a serious business and as a way of generating income, they must see tourism as a serious venture to create employment and as a way of creating peace among the people of the country. Because if foreigners are coming into Nigeria from the gateway state like Lagos, there must be element of tranquility just as it’s been done in Dubai. The more people come into the country, the more revenue for the government and the G.D.P will be high. So tourism is very crucial in the economy of any country. I am very optimistic about the fact that the incoming president Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu will perform and tourism industry will benefit in his administration because during his time as the Governor of Lagos State he created Black Heritage Festival knowing the importance of tourism to the development of the state” he concluded.