Top Diplomats of the Spanish Embassy in Abuja have confirmed their participation in this year’s NIHOTOUR Gastronomy Festival.
This will be the embassy’s consecutive appearance at the crowd-pulling food festival, which is emerging as one of the fastest growing in Africa.
Some months back, NIHOTOUR announced 17th June 2023 as the date of the Gastronomy Festival, and Abuja International Conference Centre as the venue of the food and culture jamboree.
Interestingly, observers of developments in Nigeria’s hospitality and tourism sector may recall that the Spanish Embassy’s cuisines exhibition stand, during the 2022 NIHOTOUR Gastronomy Festival, was one of the most visited by food sampling participants at the festival in Abuja.
The Spanish Embassy Consul in Abuja, Patricia Gomez Lanzaco, on May 26, 2023 confirmed to the Director General of NIHOTOUR, Nura Sani Kangiwa, that the embassy would increase its participation in the annual festival. Specifically, Lanzaco said the Spanish Embassy would be inviting and sponsoring a renown Spanish chef to come to Nigeria for the festival, as well as deliver masterclasses on ‘emerging best practices in Culinary Arts’ to groups of Nigerian catering and culinary schools.
Kangiwa, the Director General of National Institute for Hospitality and Tourism (NIHOTOUR), who’s brainchild is the NIHOTOUR Gastronomy Festival said: “We are most grateful to the Spanish Embassy in Nigeria and equally excited at the support the Spanish government is providing to NIHOTOUR, especially relating to the festival.
“Such technical support of bringing Spanish Culinary Arts experts, all the way from Spain, to train Nigerian catering and culinary schools, is hitherto, unparalleled and predictably transformative for Nigerian hospitality industry and food culture.”
The DG of NIHOTOUR continued: “Suffice to say, the Spanish Embassy in Nigeria is inexplicably contributing to putting Nigerian cuisines on the global gastronomy tourism map. As a matter of fact, since I became the DG of NIHOTOUR, my goal has been to deepen the knowledge and technical capacity of personnel in culinary schools, catering enterprises and the tourism industry across Nigeria.”
It is noteworthy that the NIHOTOUR Gastronomy Festival is conceptualised and programmed to upskill Nigerian gastronomes and culinary artists on the technicalities and emerging global best practices of processing, preparing, presenting, packaging and promoting foods, especially Nigerian traditional cuisines.
Since NIHOTOUR’s announcement of the dates and venue of this year’s Gastronomy Festival, a number of countries and Nigerian food brands have confirmed their participation to showcase their national cuisines and beverages. The countries include China, Trinidad & Tobago, Senegal, and Cote D’Voire. Also, some leading Nigerian allied-food and beverage brands have confirmed their participation in the festival.
The DG of NIHOTOUR is confident that more embassies in Nigeria and, leading food and beverage brands, will partake in the festival to showcase their brands.
