By Taiye Olayemi

The National Council for Arts and Culture (NCAC) has collaborated with the SKaL Club International to harness and promote Nigerian culture and tourism potential to the global communities.

Its Director-General, Chief Olusegun Runsewe, disclosed this in a statement in Lagos on Friday.

Runsewe stated that the agreement was reached when he received a delegation from SKal Club International, led by its President, Mr Daisi Olotu in Abuja.

He added that the agreement aimed at promoting global tourism.

“NCAC has cemented a pact with SKal Club International; a professional organisation whose mandate is to promote global tourism, friendship and harness the huge tourism potentials in Nigeria for the global market.

“Nigeria with enormous tourism potentials and home to about 250 ethnic groups and 500 distinct languages, endowed with a plethora of historical sites, monuments, and richly diverse cultural heritages is a tourist heaven.”

He noted that despite its huge potentials, tourism as an alternative source of revenue to crude oil had been neglected for many years owing to the country’s heavy reliance on the mono product.

He said that in many other countries, culture and tourism were the main stay of their economy.

According to him, the benefits to Nigeria’s tourism sector will be enormous,

” If its tourism potentials is well harnessed and marketed as a veritable tourist destination.”

Runsewe said that the value chain of Nigeria’s tourism potential range from the hospitality sector to aviation and transportation.

Othera are destination management, souvenir production, event packaging, carnivals, festivals and cultural promotions and more.

He said the opportunities of leveraging this key growth sector to create jobs and add to the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) were limitless as no one could be regarded as a failure in the sector.

He noted that the platform created by Skal International would help in marketing the nation’s unique cultural heritage, vibrant traditions, and warm hospitality to the world.

According to him, it will also create a distinct and compelling brand identity through collaborative marketing campaigns, both domestically and internationally.

Earlier, Olotu said the purpose of the visit was to identify with NCAC director-general who had remained a constant phenomenon in the tourism, arts and culture space in Nigeria.

He said the group was proud to be associated with Nigeria’s favourite culture and tourism ambassador whose passion and drive on his job in this sector was evidently unrivaled.

He noted that SKal Club International with headquarters in Torremolinos, Spain was founded 89 years ago with a mandate to promote global tourism, friendship and unite all sectors of the tourism industry.

He also sought ways of collaboration with NCAC to harness and market Nigeria’s tourism potentials globally.

The visit featured an interactive session where the visitors bore their minds on sundry challenges militating against their smooth operations and ways to overcome them. (NAN) (nannews.ng)

Edited by Deji Abdulwahab