Managing Director of Cross River State Tourism Bureau, Mr. Michael Williams, on Thursday urged investors to concentrate more on developing profitable tourist attraction sites instead of hotels alone.
Williams gave the charge in Calabar, the state capital during the inauguration of ‘Vision 2014’ and unveiling of 10 vehicles.
The vehicles, which were procured by Remlord Travelling Agency, are expected to take an envisaged 5,000 visitors round the state in its tourism (Experience Cross River) drive.
This came just as a travel and tourism expert, Mr. Ikechi Uko, urged investors to see themselves as major players in the sector, saying Nigeria and specifically Cross River was already receiving more tourist visitors than Kenya.
Uko said, “The value added chain in the tourism sector has improved tremendously. The private sector should key into this as they are major players in the industry. Nigeria gets more tourists than Kenya at the moment; so, we should begin to celebrate our own.”
However, Williams said over the years, the state’s tourism players had dissipated energy on the building of hotels, whereas other tourist attraction sites were ignored as investors refused to exploit and develop such areas.
He said, “In 2007 when I came on board, I saw that the private sector was on one side and the government on the other. When I realised that the state had enormous potentials if the tourism sector was given a boost, I had to intensify efforts to turn around the fortune of the industry for sustainable development.”
Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Remlord Travelling Agency and Experience Cross River, Mr. Nkereuwem Onung, said the new vehicles would help to boost the industry.
Onung stated that about 5,000 tourists from different African countries, Asia, Europe and America would be hosted by the state before 2014 by the travelling agency and the state bureau of tourism.
He said, “The initiative became necessary due to the population explosion which the state bureau of tourism had experienced during festive periods.
“When Experience Cross River kick-started, it only hosted 2,000 tourists. The agency had assumed that before 2014, the population density of tourist influx would have astronomically increased to 5,000.”