The Director-General, National Institute for Hospitality and Tourism (NIHOTOUR), Alhaji Nura Kangiwa, is seeking stakeholders’ cooperation to reposition the tourism industry.
He said he would focus on digitalising the institute by replacing old equipment and materials with modern ones to pace up with global best practice.
He identified training of professionals that will service the industry as a focal point that will impact greatly on the overall developmental of the industry.
He spoke in Lagos at the weekend after a facility tour of the institute’s Lagos campus.
“Plans are underway to train best destination managers, employ good marketing plan and more”, he said, adding that NIHOTOUR would be upscaling its training to produce efficient hospitality professionals.
‘’NIHOTOUR was rated one of the best top 10 authorised training centres in Africa in August 2012 by the International Air Transportation Association (IATA) and in 2015, we became top in Africa and the world so with our certificate, unemployed youths can secure jobs abroad.
‘’Henceforth, we shall be engaging the best brains for NIHOTOUR training. If we do not get NIHOTOUR right, we cannot get the Nigerian tourism right. It is the bed rock of tourism.
‘’Training of tour operators, strategic planning, marketing plan and training of tour guides are key factors to a sustainable tourism development… Training the trainers … media contributions matter too,” he said.
“I was impressed with all I saw during the facility tour of the Lagos institute, particularly with the vibrant and friendly staff I saw who I observed are hungry for action in working with me.
“I believe in teamwork and I have seen that team spirit in them, they gave me courage and confident that we will satisfy the yearnings of the tourism sector in Nigeria.
‘’We intend to digitalise NIHOTOUR, our modus operandi will be in accordance with international best practices. To achieve this, we have to change everything; so almost all the facilities will be changed,” he said.
Kangiwa said NIHOTOUR, saddled with the huge responsibility for basic hospitality training and other vocational qualification programmes, planned to engage best brains across the globe to carry out most of the trainings.
He said the only way to tackle unemployment in the country was to harness the creative industry properly, which constitutes 70 per cent employment opportunities.
Kangiwa said the institute would partner the National Assembly for the provision of sufficient funds to help the youth and women in the creative industry to be productive and independent.
He added that the National Assembly would also be educated on the quality of NIHOTOUR certificates as unemployed youths could secure jobs overseas with them.