FTAN Prepares for Tourism Investment Forum in Abuja

THE Federation of Tourism Associations of Nigeria (FTAN) is set for the 2016 Nigerian Tourism Investors Forum (NTIFE) scheduled to hold on November 29 and 30 in Abuja.

The theme for this year’s edition is Tourism: Tool for Economic Recovery and Development.

The NTIFE will bring together experts in the travel and tourism trade to deliberate and make recommendations to both the private and public sectors. Federal and state governments’ agencies involved in travel and tourism are also expected to participate in the deliberation.

The forum, according FTAN, offers opportunity for the promotion of Nigeria as a tourist destination. Through the opportunities for exhibition during the two-day event, private sector practitioners, states and agencies of the federal government are offered opportunities to showcase their tourism products and potentials and be able to meet with potential investors in tourism.

Also during the event, issues affecting the growth and development of tourism in the country are brought to the fore, with experts and practitioners offering solution on the way forward.

It will also bring together investors in travel and tourism and policy makers from the public sector to a platform for meaningful discussions on the development of the sector.

NTIFE, according to FTAN, has become even more important now that the federal government has identified domestic tourism as one of the avenues for poverty alleviation.

This, it says, has become imperative given the fact that tourism is one of the world’s largest industries, generating an estimated 11 per cent of the world’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

The industry employs about 200 million people and annually transports nearly 700 million people. This, the organiser says, is what the NTIFE would the government achieve.

NTIFE, organisers say, will help the government harness the full tourism potentials of the country in the quest to diversify the economy.

Speaking on the this year’s NTIFE, the chairman of the committee for the forum, Otunba Ayo Olumoko, said this year’s event would be an improvement on past editions, as it was the first time FTAN is setting up a committee with a mandate to organise the forum. He said the gesture has brought a certain level of professionalism that the committee has the duty of sources for fund, bringing in corporate participation and reaching out to different states. He said this year’s NTIFE would witness greater participation for the public and private sector.

On the format that the forum would take, Olumoko said participants would have opportunity to exhibit their products and services. There would also be cultural presentations from states and groups.