Nigerian Hotel owners under the Umbrella of the Hotel Owners Forum Abuja (HOFA) urged President Bola Tinubu’s administration to establish a stand-alone Ministry of Tourism,
The group stated that creating this Ministry would strengthen the regulations of the hospitality industry.
This was disclosed in an interview by the President of HOFA, Mrs Funmi Kazeem, on Wednesday in Abuja.
Strengthen Regulation
The Hotel lobby chief noted that a stand-alone Ministry of Tourism would help the Federal Government to strengthen regulations of the hospitality industry to checkmate crimes in the sector, especially in hotels, she said:
- “Proper regulation of the hospitality sector would checkmate crimes in the sector, especially in hotels. Though there are criminals everywhere and crimes are not only committed in hotels but outside hotels.
- “As a matter of fact, crimes happen in hotels. And in some occasions, we have been able to identify these people. In our hotels, HOFA members have CCTV cameras.
- “For instance, part of what we talked about at the AIG office yesterday was security, especially Yahoo boys who come to lodge in hotels.
- “Some hotels hide under the guise of no proper regulations to harbour criminality because they don’t have names on them and they are hotels,’’.
One Lobby
She added that Hotel owners need to be under an association to ensure that they do not cut corners, adding, that the association boasts 300 members out of a thousand hotels in the FCT, citing that the remaining 700 hotels had refused to become members of HOFA because they were avoiding tax, adding
- “They don’t have names and identities.
- “If the government can make it in such a way that every hotel is well regulated, the issue of criminality will reduce.’’
- “They don’t pay tax. Federal Inland Revenue Service does not know them and they make more money, and people prefer to go there because they feel they are hidden.
- “ People know hotels under HOFA and we don’t want our names to be mentioned with evil.
- “I think the Federal Government can do a lot by regulating us, and that is the reason why we are asking for a Tourism Ministry where we will be properly regulated,’’
This is the second lobby group to call for such a Ministry, recall Nairametrics also reported that The National Council for Arts and Culture (NCAC) also urged President Bola Tinubu to make the establishment of a sole ministry for tourism and culture a priority, for the advancement of the industries.
Chief Olusegun Runsewe, Director-General, NCAC, said that a stand-alone ministry for tourism and culture was needed to ensure the obvious tourism communication gap between the private and public sectors was bridged.
Yes, let’s WASTE more money by creating new superfluous ministries.
This is a nation where you can hardly vlog or take pictures on the streets or even at Shoprite or restaurants. Just fix your country for your citizens and foreigners will visit, without any need to create and staff yet another bloated bureaucratic organization or ministry.