NPC Offers Technical Support to Boost Tourism Sector

    The National Planning Commission, NPC, says it will offer technical support in the area of training, data collection and capacity building to the Nigerian Tourism Development Corporation, NTDC in attempts to develop the Nigerian tourism sector. Barrister Ntufam Fidel Ugbo, Secretary to the Commission, made the pledge in Abuja during a courtesy visit to the NPC by the Director General of the NTDC, Mrs. Sally Mbanefo. Barrister Ugbo, said that the Commission will assist the NTDC through one of its parastatals, National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) to capture data of visitors inflow, identify the kind of visitors they are expecting and what the visitors would want. In the area of training, he stated that the commission would offer overseas and local training to the staff of NTDC in a bid to help them perform better in their duties, which will in the long run facilitate in the rapid development of the sector in the areas such as security, administration, websites and tour guides. The Secretary also promised to assist the NTDC in acquiring development partners that will assist them as well as ensuring that the Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) department of the Commission offer help also. Mrs. Sally Mbanefo who led the delegation on the visit, explained that the objective of the NTDC is focused on three goals which include: rebuilding of NTDC, growing the tourism locally for job creation and income generation for the country, and also reinventing the Nigerian tourism sector. Mrs. Mbanefo further mentioned some initiatives and projects that NTDC have embarked upon since she took over as the DG of the corporation which include; domestic tourism promotion, creating a national tourism calendar, enabling visits to tourist sites in the six- geo – political zones in the country and embarking on the green city project. She continued that Nigeria has an amazing 7,000 tourism sites across the country with only a few of them being utilized and developed. She expressed the need for all Nigerians to join in promoting the Nigerian tourism sector which she said has the capability of job creation, revenue generation and also empowering the grass roots as the sites are located in rural areas, which will in turn discourage rural urban migration.