In its tenth year in youth tourism and hospitality education, the organiser have continued to open endless opportunities to prepare Nigerian youth for the future challenges in the growing country’s tourism industry through gainful employment, training, full scholarship to study courses of their choice as well as domestic and international travel experience to broaden their knowledge of the industry.
This year’s edition which brought stakeholders from the aviation, hospitality and travel industry also rallied over 300 tourism youths from 15 tourism clubs from different universities, polytechnics and associations across Nigeria to the National Museum of Unity Ibadan for the educative forum.
At the event, the keynote speaker and General Manager of Best Western Hotel Plus, Ibadan, Mr Abayomi Ayeni, held the audience spell bond as he extensively gave real life experience of his success in the hotel business and how he climbed the ladder of his career from being a dish washer and floor cleaner to someone that manage Four and five star hotels in Nigeria.
In his educative presentation which amazed and attracted resounding applauds from the audiences urged participants, especially youths to see perseverance, hard work and focus as key factor to success in life.
According to him, getting to the peak of your career is not only by your academic knowledge alone but also by using your common sense to add value to yourself through on-the-job training by creating a futuristic niche for yourself. That is my candid message for you future leaders because it is not everything you will learn in school.
Also the guest speaker, Dr Feyisike Obateru of Federal Polytechnic, Ede, who has a double personality (a core stakeholder who cut she teeth in the catering and hospitality industry before going into lecturing) said the tourism industry is the future of Nigeria’s economy calling on the youths to hold ace in what they are doing to scale up activities and trend of the tourism industry in Nigeria, “The government must rise up to these God giving tourism potentialities deposited in Nigeria to change the narrative and structure of the country’s economic story and also to use the richness in tourism development to create jobs and generate domestic revenue.
The 10th edition of the YTHLF came to the climax as the organiser, Mr Omololu Olumuyiwa announced names of 25 lucky dip raffle winners to enjoy full tuition fee scholarships to study and course of their choice at Stayup Aviation Institute of Technology, Ibadan for the next academy session.
Omololu break the camel back with an announcement of a free return flight ticket to a lucky winner who will emerge from a time frame tourism essay competition for 10 raffle ticket owners.
and then