Participants at the annual Travelscope Youth Tourism and Hospitality Forum have continued to enjoy the dividend of their commitment to tourism as every edition adds value and inspiration to their passion.
This year’s edition was a harvest of scholarships and employment as 20 lucky participants were offered 100 per cent full scholarships to study any course of their choice at Stay Up Aviation School, Ibadan, while an online travel agency gave an instant employment to students and another two students also got free tickets to attend a seminar in Lagos, organised by Jemi-Alade Tours on how to package domestic and local tours
The eighth edition of Youth Tourism and Hospitality Leaders Forum, held at Jogor Centre, Ibadan recently, rallied high profile speakers who stimulated the audience of over 250 delegates on the prime place tourism would play in the social, cultural and economic life of the country in the coming years.
The event witnessed a full hall of young people from all walks of life, students from tertiary institutions, tourism practitioners, the academics and the media. Scholarly papers were presented by Dr Raphael Alabi, Coordinator Tourism and Development Programme, University of Ibadan and Ibraheem Kukoyi, Department of Hospitality and Tourism, Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta.
In his opening address, the convener, Omololu Olumuyiwa, charged the audience on the imperative for the younger generation to wake up to the realities of great opportunities that abound in the tourism and hospitality industry.
“We now live in a global village in which the travel, tourism and hospitality industry daily assumes greater importance both as key economic industry, as it is today the greatest creator and employer of labour and catering as a major source of revenue earner for many countries”, Omololu explained.
Alade asserted that tourism is big business. Alade is one of the foremost tour operators within the industry who is in the forefront of stimulating and packaging inbound tourism for audiences from in Asia and other countries into Nigeria. He is the Managing Director of Jemi-Alade Tours.
“It’s gladdening to see that our youths are now jeering up for tourism. Yet there’s still so much to be done.
Dr James Rapheal, on his remarks revealed that he was successfully moved from doing tourism as a hobby and turned it into a profession.
“Many people see tourism as capital intensive, but here to prove to you that it is not, stating that Ibadan has lots of discovered tourism sites as well as several undiscovered.
“You might want to spend money travelling out of Ibadan for tours. But why don’t you start from the ones that are nearest to you,” he charged the audience.
Abiola Bakare, Sales Manager, Kenya Airways said: “Tourism is serious business. But if you don’t have passion, you cannot survive in tourism business.
“If you start tourism business today, without the passion and training you may not excel in it. Academics need to steer research in the industry. But the challenge is transforming the trainings in tourism into creating jobs.
“When we talk about inbound and outbound tourism, we need to stimulate our domestic tourism and the last few years we have started seeing growing focus on domestic tourism in this country. And we need to embrace it,” he added.
The guest speakers, Coordinator, Sustainable Tourism & Development Programme, Univeristy of Ibadan, Dr Raphael Alabi and Mr Ibraheem Kukoyi from Dept of Tourism & Hospitality Management, Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta gave in-depth analysis on the impacts of sustainable tourism to youths.
During the event, the convener, Omololu Olumuyiwa, gave out 100 per cent tuition fee scholarships to 20 lucky winners to study any course of their choice at Stay Up Aviation Institute of Technology, Ibadan.
Also, the special guest at the occassion, member of Federal House of Representsatives, Hon. Bosun Oladede, represented by Pastor Segun Iroko, gave out five additional scholarships and all expenses paid trip for 20 participants to witness the next edition of Iyamopo Hill Jeans carnival” in Igbeti town.
In his remarks, shortly after the online travel training by the Business Development Manager, Mr Frank Idibia, the Managing Director, Nogle Travels, Mr Godwin Chukwurah, charged youths to be more proactive in the travel and tourism business so as to build and sustain a robust tourism sector.
“As a way to further encourage the participants, the two of the aviation college beneficiaries, Olusegun Oki and Success Adenikinju will be employed by our company,” Chukurah said.