By Rose Oranye
The Anambra State Government has assured collaboration with the National Institute of Hospitality and Tourism (NIHOTOUR) to lift tourism to the highest level in Nigeria and beyond.
The state’s Commissioner for Information, Dr Law Mefor, who gave the assurance when he received the Director General of the National Institute of Hospitality and Tourism, Dr Mrs Ebele Nzekwe, and her team on a courtesy visit at his office in Awka, said the state was ready to partner with the institute to find ways of deepening their efforts to achieve greater results, including affiliations with higher institutions in the state.
Mefor maintained that Anambra has the potential of being turned into a tourism destination in Nigeria, as the Solution Government, under Prof. Chukwuma Charles Soludo, has taken practical steps towards uplifting the tourism industry by intentionally establishing the Solution Fun City.
According to him, “The Solution Fun City is a one-stop centre where you find everything leisure. It’s a major tourism facility in Nigeria, and it’s booming. People are coming in from within and outside the state. I hardly see parking space any weekend I visit there.”
“He further stressed the need for the institute to try to educate the personnel, update them and introduce many more people into tourism, which is a veritable source of vacation and a way people can pursue happiness.
“We do the same kind of thing in the state. You must have heard about 1Youth 2Skills. It’s one of the major programmes of the Solution Government. We are pursuing about 65 skill areas under the scheme, where our youths are being introduced to many skills just like you are doing.
“We are not only teaching them. We are skilling and upskilling. We are also empowering them because after teaching them, we give them materials and funds to practise what they learnt. We are not only doing this for free as a way of taking youths off the streets and the labour market; we are creating them into creators of wealth,” he said.
Earlier, the State Director of the institute, Dr Mrs Nzekwe, explained that the visit was to familiarise and integrate themselves more in the state, adding that one of the institute’s objectives is to educate, train, certify and register personnel in the field of hospitality, travel and tourism and equip practitioners in the industry to cope with the dynamics in the field of tourism.
According to her, the institute, which has done many programmes, has been existing for a long time and operating from the Enugu Zonal Office until the Anambra Office was created this year.
