The Director-General of the National Institute for Hospitality and Tourism (NIHOTOUR), Dr Abisoye Fagade, says no one in the tourism industry should practise without NIHOTOUR certification.
Dr Fagade told VON’s Correspondent, in an interview in Ilorin, Kwara State, that since assuming office as the Director-General of NIHOTOUR in November 2024, he has set out plans to give the sector the standard it deserves to become a major source of revenue for the country.
“I think we need to have standardisation.
As it were today, the sector that we all practise in doesn’t have any formal structure.
Nobody is checking the standards, and without that, you can’t measure our gain. Before now, we didn’t even know what tourism, hospitality, and travel basically are. Nobody can say specifically, this is what we are bringing to our GDP.
And then, when I resumed, the first thing I asked was, What is the instrument of this office? And fortunately for us, we have an Act which is very strong and impactful, so I realised that we need to start from there,” he said.
When asked about creating standards for the industry, the DG said:
“Standards can ensure benefits from all the touchpoints of tourism.
When I came in, there was almost zero data.
But as I speak today, I have 2,700 people who have registered freely.”
Dr Abisoye Fagade highlighted his objectives:
“My objective is to see how tourism can contribute a minimum of 9–10% to our GDP.
The foundation is very simple: we understand the critical role of the stakeholders. We have been engaging with stakeholders from different levels. What we are trying to do now is, we want to know the operators in the industry.”
How do you plan to achieve this?
“First things first, we need to assume the roles of the regulatory body. You all have to come to terms that NIHOTOUR is here to regulate the tourism practitioners in the industry.
And that’s where we are beginning. So, for me, it’s not going to be the first year of jamboree. Things we’ll be doing this year are going to be more of stakeholders’ engagement to understand ourselves, understand our needs, and then build on that.
When there are standards and people know that there are rules, you will have better results, and training needs will be met as we go along.”
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Explain what you have achieved already since resuming office early this year.
“So far, we have been able to successfully engage most of the stakeholders, but I intend to start with regulations.
We are encouraging registration. What we are doing right now is, we want to start from the top down. We want to know who and who are the management of hotels, the management of training institutions that we have, and the management of restaurants.
By the time we capture the management and they understand the need for the industry to have proper training and structure, it makes our job easier. So now we are at that level where we put the structure in place to register the top management, who are the operators in tourism.
By the time we capture that, it is easier to understand our directions.”
Talking about certification, is NIHOTOUR only going to focus on certification? What about training, because it is also an institute?
“Well, the kind of training we will be doing in NIHOTOUR is called Continuous Professional Development, CPD training that would enhance development in terms of their career.
So, rather than do the rudimentary training, which would need a lot of structure, we leave that to people who are ready to invest in training to do that and make an adequate return on their investment. But they must have a properly skilled training set. So basically, NIHOTOUR will be doing more of CPD training, management training, and middle-level training for people.”
The National Institute for Hospitality and Tourism (NIHOTOUR) Establishment Bill was signed into law in Nigeria, officially establishing NIHOTOUR as the regulatory body for the hospitality, travel, and tourism sector.