April 22, 2018
The Nigerian Tourism Development Corporation (NTDC) said a Tourism Satellite Account (TSA) would soon be created to ascertain the sector’s monetary contribution to the nation’s economy.
The Director- General of the corporation, Mr Folunrusho Coker, disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Sunday in Abuja.
Tourism Satellite Account (TSA) is a standard statistical framework and the main tool for the economic measurement of tourism.
Coker said the account would aid to assess tourism contribution, monitor its progress, evaluate its impact, encourage results-focused management and highlight strategic issues for policy objectives to attract local and foreign investors.
“ Tourism satellite account is what measures what tourism contributes to an economy.
“ Nigeria does not have a tourism satellite account; the minister just negotiated and arranged with the UNWTO for them to send the individuals who are going to establish our tourism satellite account.
“ And we have paid, they have set up a date in the next two or three weeks they are arriving in Nigeria to set that up,“ he said.
He said that the TSA was one of the major tools that would make the tourism sector to thrive globally, hence the need to establish the account in the country.
“ Tourism is an eight trillion dollar business globally growing year by year. Africa sees less than 10 per cent. Africa is six hours from the Middle East, it is six hours from Europe and we see this money flying over us consistently.
“ It is time for us to do what GSM did to analogue, it is time for us take the strategic position to look at tourism and say what the components of tourism are: transportation, hospitality and entertainment; they all exist in whatever condition.
“What we need is policy, funding and the drive to redefine that industry as we redefined the telecom industry, which today is the largest and most valuable industry in Africa; tourism in Nigeria could be same,” he said.
He reiterated NTDC’s commitment to promoting tourism potentials and assets which would further boost the nation’s revenue, increase tourism inflow as well as open markets for local artists to showcase indigenous work.
