NHTIC to showcase economic diversification efforts

CONCERNED by the dependent nature of Nigeria’s economy and the need to tackle the growing number of unemployment across the country, organiser of Nigeria Hotel and Tourism Investment Conference (NHTIC) 2015 has said that the conference is targeted at diversifying the nation’s economy and tackle employment challenges in the country.

Speaking in Lagos, the organiser of the conference Brian Efa, said that the conference would achieve the objectives by exploring Nigeria’s diverse and untapped potentials in the Tourism and Hotel sector.

He said that the sector, which has been crippled by funding, needed to be revived, adding that most of the financial institutions in the country are yet to understand the industry.

“When you look at the diversification need, some countries earn about 50 per cent of their revenue from tourism. South Africa’s 10-15 per cent GDP is from tourism. Now the oil prices are going down, we can promote tourism and I believe that this conference will throw more light to this opportunities”, he said.

According to Efa the conference, which is organised by Jonel Hospitality Consulting in association with the Federal Ministry of Culture, Tourism and National Orientation would be held in Intercontinental Hotel, Lagos from 25-27 November this year.

He bemoaned that Nigerian banks are yet to understand the huge potential in the hotel and the tourism sector, stressing that the sector is both labour and capital intensive.

“Nigerian banks are not willing to give long term finance at a very lower rate. Only few banks understand and are willing to harness the investment opportunities in that sector”, Efa added.

According to him the conference would allow the financial institutions to interact with the investors and other stakeholders so as to understand the financial structures in the sector, “so we are optimistic that this conference will play a critical role in addressing the problems,” Efa stated

“There are enormous opportunity in the sector, Nigeria tourism is labour intensive, there’s an opportunity to employ a huge level of manpower in this sector so that we can solve our unemployment problem”, he noted.