NTDC to launch Tour Abuja City project in August • As Mbanefo describes staff as her core stakeholders
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FOLLOWING the Memorandum of Understanding between the Nigerian Tourism Development Corporation (NTDC) and ABC Transport on promotion of domestic tourism in Nigeria, the NTDC’s Tour Abuja City Project will kick start in August.
This was disclosed during the opening ceremony of a two-day staff retreat of the corporation, held at the Village Hall of the corporation in Abuja, recently.
The project, according to the Director-General of the corporation, Mrs Sally Mbanefo, was to market tourist sites in Abuja, thereby encouraging residents in the city to visit tourist sites therein.
Mbanefo disclosed that ABC Transport has assigned two sight-seeing buses to the corporation, to take Abuja residents from one tourist destination to the other, adding that, “the buses will pick people from designated nine bus stops to 24 tourist sites/landmarks in Abuja city.”
Meanwhile, Mbanefo has described members of staff of the corporation as the core stakeholders in the Nigeria’s tourism industry, pointing out that neglect of the staff was why the nation’s tourism master plan was not working.
“The reason why all the tourism master plans we have been having in the country did not work was the abandonment of staff, and paying no or less attention to the welfare of the staff, that are going to drive the project, direct the strategic imperative of the organisation,” she decried.
“I appreciate the fact that staff of the NTDC, the implementer of Nigeria’s tourism plans, are the core stakeholders in the industry.
“Hence, they must be well equipped and practically made ambassadors of the Nigeria’s tourism industry to drive development in the industry.
“As result, I ensured that capacity building and staff welfare top my agenda in repositioning the Nigeria’s tourism industry and promoting domestic tourism in the country. And this, I will execute to the letter.
“Following our Memorandum of Understanding with The Gambia Tourism Board, 20 NTDC staff will be going for an exchange training programme in The Gambia on customer care, public relations, health and safety, administration and management, and project management.
However, The Gambia Tourism Board is inviting trainers from Netherland to train our staff,” Mbanefo said.
The NTDC boss explained that the staff retreat could have been held earlier, but due to financial constraints, “hence we considered holding it within the premises of the corporation to save some money, while planning for a bigger one outside the corporation before the end of the year.”
The retreat, Mbanefo said, was organised to equip the staff of the corporation on how to generate revenue, as well strengthening their capacity to for enhanced service delivery.
Enlightening the staff on her activities in the first year in office, Mbanefo said: “We want all Nigerians to recognise the importance of tourism; that is why we used the first year of our administration to create awareness and agree on implementable policy framework that would make it possible for the country to harness the potentials that abound in the tourism sector.
“Today, we have in-house consultant who is now going to put our staff through on how to involve the staff in revenue generation, and to have understanding of what role they have to play because they are my most important stakeholders in this tourism value chain.”
Why reviewing her 2014 revenue generation plan during the retreat, Mbanefo stated that one of her plans was to make the corporation independent of government handout.
”One of the reasons behind revenue generation is for NTDC to become independent of government handout, we believe that in all the countries that have tourism best practices, tourism is what the nations survive on; but that is not the case with Nigeria.
“But with NTDC strive on tourism and the support of all the partners we have signed MOU with, we are going to generate revenue not just for NTDC alone, but for the whole country, then, there would be a future, then, the desperation on oil will be reduced, there will be jobs.
“Through the domestic tourism campaign which we are using to encourage Nigerians to travel within Nigeria, we have travelled around the six geo-political zones, and our plan is to develop one tourism site in every geo-political zone.”
Mbanefo also appealed to the government to pay more attention to tourism, adding that tourism should not be abandoned because of it’s high potential. “Out of 170 million Nigerians, if just 20 million travel within Nigeria, we have potential of generating revenue of four billion dollar, that is something to think about because it affects all sectors of the economy positively,” Mbanefo said.
