NIHOTOUR DG rewards best campus, outstanding staff members

The Management of National Institute for Hospitality and Tourism (NIHOTOUR) has announced the names of Most Outstanding Staff Members of the Year 2023 and Best Campus of the Year 2023.

The yearly Best Campus and Outstanding Staff Members award system was introduced by the current Director General of NIHOTOUR, Nura Sani Kangiwa in 2021.

The award system is a twelve calendar month performance evaluations matrix that straddles a preceding and a current year, hence this latest award is for May 2022 to June 2023. The winners will be publicly decorated during the Gala Night of NIHOTOUR Gastronomy Festival on June 17, 2023.

Lagos Campus emerged as the Overall Best NIHOTOUR Campus of the Year 2023. The Coordinator of NIHOTOUR Lagos Campus is Mrs. Chinyere Uche-Ibeabuchi. The SERVICOM Unit Head in NIHOTOUR Abuja office, Mrs. Gemma Simon, emerged Best Staff of the Year; and Mr. Haladu Habu Wakili, a staff in the Registry Unit in NIHOTOUR Abuja office, emerged as the Most Dedicated Staff of the Year 2023.

In keeping with the rewards tradition introduced by Kangiwa, the announced winners will be given travel rewards.

Kangiwa had months ago explained to some of the Institute’s top-level Management that, “NIHOTOUR as a Federal Government parastatal is primarily a public service provider and enabler for the development of Nigeria’s Hospitality and Tourism communities, particularly personnel and businesses in the industry.

The Director General however noted that there is need to improve on the country’s tourism industry development support services and administration. “My years in the private sector have convinced me that well-informed and cognately experienced civil servants are naturally more progressive in addressing sector-specific needs and quick to provide intervention services to personnel and businesses in the industry.

Toward this end, among others, I will ensure more NIHOTOUR staff, at the three levels – top, middle and junior levels – are progressively exposed to emerging domestic and international best practices in other leading tourism destinations, through fully-funded trips, as one of the rewards for exemplary work in the Institute.”

Kangiwa continued: “Nigeria is arguably the most resourceful cultural tourism destination in Africa today. Nigeria’s diversity of tribes, are producing internationally-appealing eclectic traditional festivals, fashion trends, musical acts, culinary, and creative cultural arts. These are empirically evident to us all.

Moreover, by the Establishment Act of NIHOTOUR, we are duty-bound to provide improved public services to workers in the industry, stakeholders and other government agencies. Our services should, eventually, crystallise Nigeria’s cultural tourism potential into becoming the most generative cultural tourism economy in the continent.”