The Director-General of the National Institute for Hospitality and Tourism (NIHOTOUR), Nura Sani Kangiwa, has said that the Institute is poised to ensure massive job creation and empowerment of rural communities through promotion and support for gastronomy tourism in the country.
Kangiwa spoke on Friday at the 2024 NIHOTOUR Gastronomy Festival and Gala Nite event with the theme ‘Sustainable Food Production from Farm to the Table’.
The food festival which was held in an atmosphere of conviviality, attracted participants from different parts of the country and some foreign nations including Spain, China, South Africa, Trinidad Tobago, Togo among others who displayed and served their various traditional cuisines and delicacies at the event.
According to DG NIHOTOUR, gastronomy is the art of food; a style of cooking from a particular locality and region from food and cuisine.
He said a lot of jobs were created through the gastronomy product value chains where the food crop is sourced, farmed, cultivated, transported, warehoused, merchandised, marketed and supplied to the food and beverage producers, served and eventually plated on the table to be consumed.
He added the event was designed to deliberately expose the professionally trained food and beverage production and service expertise and their wide array of prepared flavours of rich ancestral traditions that enrich the global gastronomic landscape, foster stronger community bonds and promote Nigerian culture worldwide
He noted that the goal of the Institute was to collectively shape the future of Nigeria’s gastronomy tourism, emphasizing its potential to empower local communities and foster rural development and socio-economic growth as an all-strategic priority outlined in the UN Tourism Agenda for Africa –Tourism for Inclusive Growth.
Kangiwa said: “Gastronomy as a specialised tourism brand and activity contributed to the more than 118 million created jobs of that translates to 3.8% global employment as reported by World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC).
“Records also have it that for every 30 new tourists created, one new job is created in every industry of the sector.
“It is in fact estimated that tourism will continue to grow to 414 million jobs and 11.6% of total employment by 2028.
He commended the Minister of Tourism, Lola Ade-John, for supporting the agency in various ways to successfully host the event.
The Minister, Lola Ade-John, on her part, said the Ministry is keen on ensuring improved job creation, increased revenue and better practices, and also ensuring that all work together with different stakeholders to achieve set objectives.
She stressed the need for communities to engage in better food and farming practices to keep Nigerians healthy.
“The government is doing a lot you know, as part of the renewed hope agenda, we are ensuring that we meet certain targets, we are looking at improved job creation, increased revenue, better practices and also ensuring that we all work together with different stakeholders to achieve these objectives.
“We have reviewed existing tourism policies and we are standardising hotels, and we are working on our master plan, and setting the standards for our culinary skills and training.
“Most importantly, we have been going around selling our doctrine according to tourism in all the communities across the country, although we just started, but we are making very good progress and the states are all excited,” stated.
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