Tourism: Minister calls for improved service

THE Federal Capital Territory Minister, Malam Muhammad Bello, has urged the operators in the tourism sector in Abuja to improve on service delivery so as to boost the development of the industry in Nigeria.

He particularly urged them to change their attitude towards service delivery by ensuring that the environment was clean and available facilities worked to optimum standards, if they were to turn around the fortunes of the industry.

Bello expressed the willingness of the FCT administration to partner with the stakeholders in the tourism sector by making available accurate data of all tourist destinations in the FCT, as well as facilitating  training and retraining of manpower in the sector.

He spoke when he hosted a delegation from the National Institute for Hospitality and Tourism (NIHOTOUR), led by its Director- General, Mrs Chika Balogun, who paid him a courtesy visit in his office in Abuja.

He said emphasis must be placed on better service delivery, especially this time that the country was making concerted efforts to truly diversify the nation’s economy saying tourism sector could be unbundled and be a major revenue earner in Nigeria.

The minister disclosed that the complaints generally by most people that visit Nigeria were that the quality of services being provided were not good enough when compared to what was obtainable in other climes.

“A lot of people get put off by the way we receive them at the airports, the way we treat them in the buses, the way we treat them at the hotel reception points, the way we clean their rooms and the way we provide them service generally. I think if, as Nigerians, we are able to really improve on that aspect, it is going to be a huge catalyst in trying to revamp and really get the full potential of the tourism sector.

“We have to work on service delivery. It is not really the quality or sophistication of what we provide. Some of the places you go, you find that really, the furniture is simple, locally made, the buildings are locally made. But the facilities work. Cleanliness is emphasised,” he added.

He said any requirement that would involve partnering with the institution and other agencies, the FCT administration would do it, saying “in the FCT within our agencies, we have units and departments really specifically meant to cater for this and in the past, we’ve had a lot of interventions”.

Balogun, earlier said there was the need to reposition the FCT to become a major destination that would attract conferences, not only within Nigeria but from the West African sub-region and the rest of the world.

“We have to be a conference destination that is actually dedicated to going to solicit for those things and doing all the needful for us to begin to attract conferences to Nigeria. It is a sign of very big business and one low hanging fruit that we can very easily pluck.

“We will like to partner with you in terms of training and retraining the manpower within the FCT. We would like to be your number one partner in terms of training, especially within the hospitality and tourism industry”, she said.