Tourism Development In Nigeria Research Articles

Community Empowerment in Nigeria’s Tourism Industry: An Analysis of Stakeholders’ Perceptions

ABSTRACT This paper explores community empowerment in tourism development in Nigeria through an analysis of the perceptions of key stakeholders. Community empowerment is essential to ensure local community members benefit from tourism development. The study uses a qualitative approach to evaluate the degree of local community participation and empowerment in tourism in South-West Nigeria. Findings suggest that when community members have a sense of their political agency, they feel empowered psychologically. Community empowerment was found to be experienced differently by different stakeholders within the communities—some were more positive than others. The variability of experience suggests the potential for some cross—institutional/project learning. Local Government Tourism Committees (LGTCs) can facilitate empowerment at the community level—should be supported, and their role cultivated, to address the dearth of meaningful community empowerment. This in turn will require Nigerian governance structures to be willing to devolve a degree of power and authority over decisions to these bodies and the communities they serve.

Change and Continuity in Event Tourism Development in Nigeria: Examples from Ekpe Cultural Festival in Abia State

Events are not only one of the most important parts of tourism, but also an inseparable part of human society. In recent times, events have gained global significance through the tourism industry. As festivals are essentially special events, their special appeal stems in part from their limited duration or concentration of activities over a set period and innate uniqueness of each event or there may be a particular theme. This article critically examines the change and continuity processes of a community festival— Ekpe Cultural Festival in Umunkpeyi and Isingwu in Abia State, Nigeria—for a deeper understanding of the effects in the development of event tourism and its sustainability. Data were collected through ethnographic fieldwork conducted with key informants directly involved in the festival, including the community leaders, chiefs, and staff of the Department of Tourism (DoT), the Abia State Tourism Board (ASTB), and the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture (MoTAC). Data were analyzed using content analysis to identify themes that reflect informants' perception of the changes and continuity that affect the festival in the study area. Findings revealed notable changes in the practices associated with the festival such as indifference to attire for the festival, drastic reduction in masking, attitude to funding during the festival, while male dominance continues to be paramount. This article concludes that event tourism development requires government support, collaboration, and sensitization to harness and retain some practices of the festival amid obvious changes.

Local perceptions of tourism development and socio-cultural impacts in Nigeria

ABSTRACT There is a shortage of literature on the nature of tourism development and the socio-cultural impacts in Nigeria, making it challenging to identify and discuss strategies for building on positive aspects. Unplanned tourism leaves local people aggrieved, whilst planned tourism may provide economic benefits and help to revive their culture. Although tourism development in Nigeria is affected by terrorism and insecurity, the government is willing to develop the industry. Therefore, research is needed to understand tourism development and socio-cultural consequences. This paper reports on a study conducted in Southeastern Nigeria, which confirmed that tourism is in the early development stage, and the local people noted that significant adverse impacts are not observable. The paper proposes strategies for addressing potential negative socio-cultural impacts, including being realistic, working together, creating equal opportunities and education/awareness. This paper provides valuable information for planners and developers on possible ways of developing resident-friendly tourism destination.

Facilitating collaboration and community participation in tourism development: The case of South-Eastern Nigeria

Collaboration and community participation are crucial for securing sustainable tourism and highlight the need to listen and respond to the broad range of stakeholders’ voices, opinions, and concerns. These concepts dominated the discourse of sustainable-responsible tourism and gave rise to collaboration theory as well as various types of community participation. Many scholars in both Western and emerging economies have employed these concepts; however, there is limited research on how they apply in the Nigerian tourism industry. Therefore, this exploratory research discusses collaboration and community participation in tourism development in Nigeria, using the Southeastern region as a case study. In this area, tourism is in the early phase of growth. The paper reports on interviews and focus group discussions used to interact with tourism stakeholders in the region (traditional rulers, men, women, and youth representatives, chief priests, security agents, and tourism officials). Results showed that while the stakeholders are willing to collaborate, challenges affecting their efforts include autocratic governance structures leading to mistrust, clash of responsibilities, inadequate funding for security, lack of tourism awareness and little respect for local culture. The paper concludes that to develop a resident-friendly tourism destination and sustain collaboration and community participation, stakeholders require education about tourism and opportunities to participate in planning.

Urbanization’s Impacton the Development of Tourism in Nigeria: A Case Study of Eti-Osa Local Government Area of Lagos State, Nigeria

Urbanization and Tourism are two concepts that both have impact on the development of an area, and both having impact on each other- urbanization influencing tourism, and tourism influencing urbanization. For this study, the researcher tested the relationship between urbanization and tourism development using Eti-Osa Local Government area of Lagos State. To carryout this study, the researcher collected primary data through a questionnaire which was administered at the study area. The population for this study is the residents of the Local Government Area, from the population, a sample was drawn using convenient sampling. The researcher was able to distribute 107 questionnaires, and retrieved 100. The data was analysed using both descriptive and statistical analysis. The result of the finding states that there is no relationship between urbanization and tourism development of Eti-Osa Local Government Area.

Impact of Corruption and Insurgency on Tourism Performance: A Case of a Developing Country

ABSTRACT Insurgency and corruption have consistently remained the bane of economic growth and development of a tourist destination. As such, the impact of corruption indices and insurgency on tourism development in Nigeria is examined by using the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) approach. The finding posits a significant long-run relationship of insurgency-corruption indices-tourism receipts nexus. Also, the result reveals that insurgency significantly hampers tourism performance by causing a decrease in the number of tourism arrivals. The impact of corruption on tourism receipts in the long-run depends on the characteristics of the index. For instance, only the social protection and quality of public administration indices exhibit a long-run, positive and significant impact on tourism receipts. The study presents contemporary policy mechanisms to unlock the country’s tourism opportunities.

Assessing the impact of economic and cultural diversity on tourism development in Nigeria

The paper examined the impact of culture on tourism and economic development in the Northern and Southern part of Nigeria. Primary and secondary sources of data were adopted to elicit information for the study. The primary sources involved the use of questionnaire survey, interview sessions and telephone survey while the secondary sources involved the use of documented information on the internet, registry/records of the major hotels and tourist attractions within the study locations. The study revealed that 70% of the entire visitors in 2018 visited tourist attractions within the southern part of the country showing that there were more tourism activities in the Southern part than in the northern part of the country. The study also revealed that tourism attracted benefits such as employment, infrastructural development, provision of basic amenities, increased family income and increased government revenue through tax. Irrespective of the benefits, some challenges such as insecurity, lack of government and private sector interest, indifference in religious and traditional values and poor road network were observed to hinder the growth of the tourism industry. The study also revealed that 72% of visitors to the study locations attended cultural events while the remaining 28% visited natural sites. In view of these findings, the study revealed that the tourism industry in the northern part of the country suffered from some peculiar challenges such as extreme religious and traditional value system which forbids the involvement of women in tourism industry activities and interaction with strangers. With these finding, the study clearly emphasized that economic and cultural diversity had negative impact on the growth of the tourism industry in the northern part of Nigeria.

The Role of Music to Tourism Development in Nigeria

Nigeria, with a huge landmass comprising different people, languages, festivals, music, dance and rich cultural diversity, is actually a tourist preferred destination. Sitting on potential tourism goldmine, Nigeria is unarguably one of those few countries in the world that are blessed with rich culture and less natural disasters. This paper highlights the attributes of music as a place locator, icon developer, image enhancer and promoter of national harmony. Understanding the role of music in tourism development and investing in promoting indigenous lyrics and music is a sure way to the economic and social development of any tourist nation

Public Relations Strategies and Tourism Development in Nigeria

Non-application of public relations strategies to manage tourism in Nigeria has resulted in the degradation of reputable tourist sites that were once popular. The main objective of the study was to examine the role of public relations strategies on the development of tourism in Nigeria. The survey research design was adopted. Multi-stage sampling technique was used and the sample size was 281. Copies of the questionnaire were administered on the respondents to obtain primary data. Secondary sources of information were obtained from journals, magazines, textbooks, and newspapers. Data obtained were analyzed using multiple regression models in the statistical package for social sciences (SPSS). Findings of the study indicate that documentaries and film shows have a significant relationship with tourism development, awards and ceremonies have a significant relationship with tourism development and also facility visits and sponsorship of discussion groups have a significant relationship with tourism development. The study concluded that public relations strategies are viable techniques and lubricants that are very essential to the revitalization of the tourism industry in Nigeria. The study, therefore, recommended that government at all levels should plan and develop a tourism philosophy which will form the foundation for Nigerian tourism practice that will guide the nation on the type of tourism that is consistent with our national values, aspirations, and ideologies. Destination management organizations should improve and intensify efforts on effective and efficient use of documentaries and film shows, awards and ceremonies as well as facility visits and sponsorship of discussion groups to accurately position the sector as a veritable economic catalyst that can be used to stimulate investment for economic growth and development in Nigeria.

Economic Growth, Agricultural Output and Tourism Development in Nigeria: An Application of the ARDL Bound Testing Approach

Drawing from three tourism-growth theories: tourism led growth theory; growth led tourism theory; tourism – growth neutrality theory; and one agriculture-growth nexus theory – agriculture overlapping theory, this study used the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bound testing approach to examine whether or not cointegration exist among economic growth, agricultural output and tourism development in Nigeria. We intend to know what policy instruments need to be manipulated so as to achieve economic growth, increase agricultural output and enhance tourism development. From the results, it is evidence that a two –way cointegration exists between economic growth and agricultural output on the one hand, and between economic growth and tourism development on the other hand. The study also observed that a compelling long run relationship exist between agricultural output and tourism development. To achieve sustainable economic growth, policy makers are advised to pursue heavy investment in the tourism industry, adopts improved farming strategies driven by simple technology among others.

Potentials of Coastal and Marine Tourism in Nigeria

Nigeria is blessed with diverse water resources that range from resources of the inland and marine waters. However, the country has not adequately channeled these resources into use for water-based tourism. Several socioeconomic gains obtainable from marine and coastal tourism, as one of the fastest growing forms of tourism, have been utilized by many countries. Therefore, this article reviewed coastal and marine tourism and highlighted its prospects from relevant literature as it relates to tourism development in Nigeria. Identification of aquatic resources in Nigeria and their sustainable utilization for tourism will offer the country several benefits of diversified economy, which is capable of withstanding the instability of an oil-based monoeconomy. Some of the prospects of coastal and marine tourism that Nigeria can tap include revenue generation, job creation, and resource conservation, among others.

Impact of sustainability on tourism development in Nigeria: a case study of cross river state, Nigeria

ABSTRACTThe primary effort of this research therefore is to examine the reasons why tourist choose Cross River State over other tourism destinations in Nigeria, and to critically analyze the social...

The use of history and culture in the development of tourism in Nigeria

Nigeria has expressed the willingness to change from the mono-resource economy borne by petroleum. There has been the realistic desire to develop and utilize the tourism industry in diversifying the economy as the fortune from the oil and gas sector dwindles by the day. An evaluation of this feeling shows that cultural tourism above other aspects of the industry is one that Nigeria is better positioned to do well in, judging from what rich traditions and cultural heritage can be seen through the nation’s past historical experience. This paper depicted the huge potentials laden in Nigeria’s cultural tourism advocates proper appropriation of such and involvement of all for optional utilisation of the resources therein. In the same vein, it exposed and decried the notable societal ills such as insecurity in the country bedevilling the efforts being made in this respect and proffered suggestions on how to improve on the extant provisions bring forth new ones and gainfully support the development of the industry.Keywords: history, cultural tourism, diversified economy

Economy diversification: a potent tool for tourism development in Nigeria

Nigeria economy has depended mainly on proceeds from the sales of crude oil to execute most capital projects, recurrent expenditures and funding for various sectors for several years. Studies revealed that most sectors of the economy are currently inert. The emphasis on the alternatives to the use of crude oil in the advanced economies has reduced oil demands and prices, which has further weakened Nigerian earnings and naira value, leading to reduction in crude oil revenue and excess crude oil receipt. Thus, diversification is not just a choice, but a necessity. On this vain, this work reviewed the current state of some sectors in Nigeria, highlighting the effect of dependence on mono-product economy and emphasize tourism potential as a tool for economy diversification. This paper also reviewed tourism development in Nigeria, as a potent tool for economy diversification. Nigeria’s tourism sector has the potential to generate $4 billion yearly. The future for tourism in Nigeria is dependent on the opportunities and challenges being exploited and addressed. The diversity of cultural attractions, the friendly disposition of the people, revamped National Tourism orientations are key advantages in getting the best out of this sector, which would aid in economy boost in this frail time. Therefore, the opportunities and potentials in Nigeria should be exploited, substantial investment planned and strategic marketing of Nigeria as a desirable tourist destination must be in place.Keywords: Economy diversification, Tourism Development, Tourism contribution, Gross Domestic Product, Mono-economy

The Foreign Languages Factor in the Development of Tourism in Nigeria

Abstract Inbound tourism as defined by the WTO is obviously the aspect of a nation’s tourism industry to which foreign languages are directly relevant: this aspect involves foreign tourists visiting the country of reference. This paper uses Leiper’s (1979) conceptualisation of the tourism system to examine the role of foreign languages in the operations of Nigerian inbound tourism from TGR and TDR perspectives. Among the most significant revelations of this examination are the facts that: i) tourism destinations in Nigeria are to be advertised on the web and in print in the TGR countries using the languages of those countries; and ii) tour guides in Nigeria are to be trained in foreign languages to facilitate travels, stay and related transactions and activities of foreign tourists in Nigeria. These and other findings can enhance the Nigerian inbound tourism industry.

The effect of terrorism on tourism development in Nigeria

This article investigated the tourism–terrorism nexus in Nigeria using quarterly time series data within a vector autoregression analytical framework. Unlike extant studies, we gauge the influence of terrorism shocks on the tourism sector specifically on the one hand and broadly the response of some key macroeconomic variables on the other hand. Several interesting results ensued. To sum up these findings, we found a negative response of tourism revenues to terrorist incidents over the long haul as well as adverse effects on other key macroeconomic variables. Therefore, government policies to revamp the ailing economy should be complemented with well-tailored counter-terrorism approaches for effectiveness.

The Role of the Media in Tourism Development in Nigeria: The Rivers State Experience

The media are potent tools in mass mobilization, information dissemination, entertainment, socialization, integration, cultural promotion amongst others. The media plays a major role in cultural promotion and preservation at all levels. Cultural promotion entails that the media transmit and showcase the cultural heritage of a people to others such that those who are not aware of it become fully aware and also acquaint the incoming generation with their culture. Most of these cultures have gone into extinction or tilting towards going into extinction as a result of non-transmission to incoming generation. This paper x-rays the role of the media in tourism development in Nigeria with focus on Rivers State. The work is anchored on the Agenda-Setting theory which explains the effects of mass communication on culture and society. The work recommends that the media should do more in terms of advocacy reportage on cultural activities of Rivers State to keep the people alert and informed of such cultural activities as well as afford others the opportunity to leverage on the opportunities that such avenues provides thereby leading to tourism development in the state which will transcend to Nigeria as a whole. Key words: Media, Culture, Tourism, Promotion, Nigeria.

Cave Tourism and its Implications to Tourism Development in Nigeria: A Case Study of Agu-Owuru Cave in Ezeagu

Cave Tourism and its Implications to Tourism Development in Nigeria: A Case Study of Agu-Owuru Cave in Ezeagu

Impact of Sustainability on Tourism Development in Nigeria: A Case Study of Cross River State, Nigeria

Impact of Sustainability on Tourism Development in Nigeria: A Case Study of Cross River State, Nigeria

Music and Tourism: Their Roles in Generating Employment in Nigeria

Apart from education, culture is another factor on the wheel of development of any nation. A society is distinguished from another as a result of culture. Culture constitutes the totality of customs, rituals, music, food, patterns of building houses, norms and values that regulate the people’s way of life. Music, festivals and tourist centres are part of culture. This paper examines the role of music in festivals in Nigeria. It noted that specifically that during festivals people travel from far and near, play vital roles in the celebrations as it serves as an important source of information. Festivals are integral parts of tourism. It further examined the extent of development of tourism in Nigeria, types of tourism, investment opportunities available and mentioned some of the tourist sites. Their roles in generating employment were enumerated emphasizing that as labour-intensive industries, they have the potential to create more jobs per unit of investment. There is a conclusion and recommendation urging governments to make investments on music, culture and tourism top priorities in their development agendas.