Lagos – A specialist in hotel management, Mr Oladepo Adeyeye, says Nigeria needs to adopt global best practices in standardising and classifying hotels.
Adeyeye, Senior Administrative Officer, Eko Hotel and Suites, Victoria Island, Lagos told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Friday in Lagos that the exercise would attract the tourists with choice for five-star-hotel services.
According to him, boosting the nation’s profile in tourism must go hand in hand with a huge investment in the hospitality sector.
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“What we are calling hotel in Nigeria today, they are far from what it is in Europe.
“In fact, when they are talking five-star-hotel in Nigeria, I even start wondering, do we really have five-star-hotel in Nigeria? Hotel classification must be done.
“The authority must sit down and classify the hotels and get a standard. We must upgrade all our hotels.[pro_ad_display_adzone id=”70560″]
“Hotel is the platform on which tourism will flourish anywhere in the world, if we can invest so much in the hotel industry, we can turn tourism around in Nigeria.
“There are a lot of traditional festivals in Nigeria that we have not really touched, let me take for example the Osun-Osogbo Festival.
“You can imagine the people that will come from home and abroad, we need to keep them somewhere.’’
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The specialist said that guaranteeing security of lives and property in the country was necessary to encourage tourists.
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“We must invest so much in security, when people can feel secured in Nigeria; they will surely come to Nigeria and see what we have.
“We must be willing to sell what we have. We should stop this mentality of downgrading what God has given us. We are too westernised.
“There are so many things to sell here that can make our tourism strong and very active if only we are ready to do it. Both government and citizen have a lot to do.
“Oil will not be there forever but what you have, your natural asset will be there, then your potential, your own personal investment will be there.’’
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