ABUJA – Mr Tomi Akingbogun, President, Federation of Tourism Association of Nigeria (FTAN), said the association would soon establish teaching hotel to improve the quality of manpower in tourism.[pro_ad_display_adzone id=”8″]
Akingbogun made this known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on [pro_ad_display_adzone id=”10″]
Saturday.
He explained that the teaching hotel would be involved in training of manpower as some graduates were [pro_ad_display_adzone id=”10″]
not employable due to their lack of skills in hotel business.
“We plan to have a teaching hotel just like you have the teaching hospital.
“You will find out that there are so many graduates, but these graduates are not trained to the demand of the tourism industry.
“The teaching hotel will help to develop the quality of manpower for tourism”, he said.[pro_ad_display_adzone id=”10″]
Akingbogun said there was lack of quality manpower to manage the hotel sub sector of the tourism industry in the country.
He further said that this had negatively affected Nigerians in the sense that so many hotels were being managed by foreigners.
He called on the private sector and the Federal Government to start thinking toward collaborating in the area of manpower development in the tourism.
“We do not have good managers for our hotels, which is why you see so many foreigners like Chinese and Indians managing many big hotels in the country,
“The reason being that they are better trained.
“It is time for Nigeria to establish its own teaching hotel, we must not wait for government all the time, these are things we should do by ourselves’’, Akingbogun said.
He, however, said that FTAN needed government’s collaboration in this regard to develop tourism.
“We have the National Institute for Hospitality and Tourism, they have the experience in training, but we will now direct their experience towards our needs.
“There is also a gap between our schools, the graduates and the tourism sector that is supposed to employ them.
“Most of the graduates cannot be employ by the sector but with training, the gap can be bridged”, he added. (NAN)