By Tony Adibe
The Enugu State Government, and the National Institute for Hospitality and Tourism (NIHOTOUR), have commenced a 3-day training of the staff of the Enugu State Tourism Board and hotels in the state to boost sustainable tourism development as well as hospitality operations and practices in the state.
Addressing participants at the opening ceremony of the training, the Executive Chairman, Enugu State Tourism Board, Dame Rita Mbah, said that the tourism is one of the key sectors in the Governor Peter Mbah-led administration’s determination to raise the state’s economy from the current $4.4 billion to $30 billion. She explained that it was the need to equip the staff of the State Tourism Board and hotel workers with relevant skills and best practices for efficient and quality service delivery.
She said that tourism remained the highest employer of labour, globally, and the mainstay of many economies in the world. “Today, we are here with the first batch of trainees in the hospitality industry to teach them how to do things with reference to the best practices in the tourism sector. Governor Peter Mbah is set to transform the Enugu economy from $4.4 billion to $30 billion and has given us all the support to reposition the state’s tourism and hospitality sector to contribute significantly to the envisioned GDP.
“I also want to thank the leadership of the National Institute for Hospitality and Tourism for approving this training for the tourism sector in Enugu,” according to Mbah.
In his speech, the Director-General of NIHOTOUR, Alhaji Nura Kangiwa, commended Governor Mbah’s commitment to capacity building in the state’s tourism and hospitality industry, assuring that the training was tailored towards responding to the emerging needs of the industry and to bridge the unemployment gap in Nigeria.
“Travel and Tourism are recovering fast and will continue to be at the forefront of wealth and employment creation in the global economy. The United Nations World Tourism Organization reported that in 2020, over 2.6 million people were employed in different segments of Travel and Tourism in Nigeria. Going by this, it is undoubtedly true that the tourism and hospitality sector can re-engineer, revamp, and rejig the nation, as well as diversify Nigeria’s dependence on crude oil,” the Director General said.
Kangiwa, who was represented by the Director of Tourism, NIHOTOUR, Edwin Enenta, assured of NIHOTOUR’s continued partnership with the Enugu State Government.
Meanwhile, the Director of Hospitality, NIHOTOUR, Ibrahim Baba, told newsmen that the training was expertly designed to upscale the skills, knowledge, and attitudes of personnel in the be assessed and awarded certificates at the end of the three-day programme.
