By Mashe Umaru Gwamna
Tourism stakeholders have lauded director general of Nigerian Tourism Development Corporation for the promotion of digital technology amid the COVID-19 pandemic and security challenges in Nigeria.
They made the disclosure at the South-South Tourism Stakeholders’ Interactive Meeting On Thursday, August 26, 2021, in Calabar.
The programme was themed, “Use of Digital Technology to Revamp the Tourism and Hospitality Industry Amid COVID-19 and Security Challenges In Nigeria”.
The Minister for Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed in his goodwill message noted that the advent of the COVID-19 brought huge challenges to all sectors of the Nigerian economy but with the Tourism sector being the worst hit.
Mohammed said that “the choice of the theme for the stakeholders meeting could not have come at a better time.
“It is therefore certain that stakeholders and all the sector professionals will take advantage of this meeting to come out with workable and practicable solutions at the end of the day.
The Minister revealed the commitment of the Ministry to “providing plain and enabling working environment for all agencies under its purview for optimum performance.”
The Cross Rivers State Commissioner of Culture and Tourism Development,Eric Anderson,emphasised the need to embrace the use of digital technology to revamp the tourism and hospitality industry amid the COVID-19 pandemic and security challenges in Nigeria.
He remarked that the transformation to use digital technology as an innovation in the tourism sector has opened up new opportunities for tourism businesses to compete in global markets.
The Director-General of the Nigerian Tourism Development Corporation (NTDC),Folorunsho Coker, while corroborating the effect of COVID-19 on Tourism said: “tourism is one of the sectors worst hit by the COVID-19 pandemic since early 2020. It is obvious that the advent of the virus disrupted fundamental way and traditional modes of human convergence”.
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