Chief Olusegun Runsewe, Director-General, NCAC, made the call during a training session organised by the National Institute for Hospitality and Tourism for the Association of Nigerian Journalists and Travel Writers in Abuja on Friday.
Runsewe said that a stand-alone ministry for tourism and culture was needed to ensure the obvious tourism communication gap between the private and public sectors was bridged.
He noted that the Federal Ministry of Information and Culture, as presently constituted, was too large as tourism and culture lacked proper attention.
According to him, managing public information in a large and complex nation like Nigeria is too enormous to combine with providing leadership in the culture sector that is very sensitive to national integration, peace, and development.
“The federal government should therefore see to the possibility of creating a stand-alone Ministry of Culture and Tourism.
“This has been a recurring demand anywhere the issues of moving the tourism and culture sector is being discussed by professionals in the last couple of years.
“It is my conviction that a stand-alone Ministry of Culture and Tourism is an idea whose time has come,” he said.
Runsewe noted that to further bridge the tourism communication gap between the private and public sectors, it was sacrosanct to establish platforms for regular interactions among tourism stakeholders.
He advised practitioners in the industries to uphold the professional integrity of the tourism industry as they also engage in strategic partnerships.
He said tourism was a specialised sector that required professional skills and expertise.
“In all the countries such as Spain, France, the USA, and South Africa, where tourism is a serious business with huge economic returns, the sector is populated with professionals who know the global technicalities of tourism.
“They are also able to adopt that knowledge to meet the peculiar realities of their environments.
“In Nigeria, the tourism business appears to be an all-comers’ affairs, if anybody who has the means can wake up overnight to set up a tourism business, how do we expect the sector to move forward?
“No matter what you communicate, as long as it is not profit maximization, such people will never understand or flow with it.
“The public sector tourism organizations that are manned by those who do not know the technicalities of the sector have to be sensitized,” he said.
Runsewe urged tourism and travel media to constantly seek to set the agenda for the growth of Nigerian tourism by ensuring that the communication gap in the sector is reduced to the barest minimum.
He said the media must continue to put in the front burner of national discourse, issues relating to the prevailing global best practices in tourism.
“The media should take it upon themselves to inform and mobilize all stakeholders in the industry to take the required step in adopting the right approach toward building a dynamic tourism sector for Nigeria.
“Journalists are formidable agents of social change and ANJET as agents of development communication should lead the campaign to influence public opinion that will lead to the change necessary.
”This will enhance communication and healthy institutional partnership necessary for sustainable growth,” he said.
NAN
