Abuja – National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) Tourism Group has urged Federal Government to develop the tourism sector to fast track economic growth and youth empowerment in the country.
The group’s President, Mr Ezinwa Chinonso, made the call in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Monday.
Chinonso said the move would assist in addressing the challenges of unemployment in the country.
He identified lack of interest on tourism as part of the challenges retarding the country’s economic growth, and stressed the need to increase budgetary allocation for the sector.
“Nigerian government do not really have additional budget for tourism, and tourism only have 30 per cent rating in the country,” he opined.
He said that effective structures of orientation, understanding the aspect of tourism, encourage Public Private Partnership (PPP) and effective management of budgeted allocation would promote the development of tourism sector.
The group’s president said creating awareness to the general public would also encourage the development of the sector in the country.
“Inadequate funding structure, absent of private investors on tourism, poor government policy and insecurity as well as insurgency are factors militating against the development of the sector,” he said.
Also, Mr Gabriel Emmanuel, Vice-President of the group, said the group’s focus was to educate corp members about their environment, culture, ideals, ethics and norms of their country.
Emmanuel said part of the group’s mandate was to travel to places to learn people’s culture and to educate the public about the importance of culture and tourism in Nigeria.
According to him, what the group is doing will improve culture, ethnics and other related issues among the various tribal group in FCT.
Emmanuel said the group’s awareness project would provide sufficient knowledge about the values, norms, tradition as well as provide a common ground for all Nigerians to stand.
The NYSC Tourism Group is a Community Development Service group of 2014 batch `A’ in FCT.
/NAN