National Daily

Lagos partners NEPAD to boost tourism

THE Lagos State Government has called on the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) to help boost tourism in Africa by facilitating the 'Twining of Sister Cities relationships amongst different African Cities.

This call was made by the Lagos State Commissioner for Tourism and Inter-governmental Relations, Senator Tokunbo Afikuyomi while making a Presentation on the investment opportunities in the Lagos tourism sector at the 1st NEPAD Tourism Initiative held recently at Elangeni Hotel, Durban, South Africa.

Afikuyomi who described Lagos as one of the safest mega cities in the world, urged African countries to be ready to shake off all the negative prejudices and stereo-types hoist on it from outside the Continent, saying, it is unacceptable to begin to compare the security status quo of any city with less than 10 million people to that of another city like Lagos with over 16 million people.

"We must compare apples with apples and not oranges. With mega city status, comes mega security challenges. We must reflect the population factor truthfully in assessing the security situations of a destination for tourism, Insisting that "never must we allow external forces to typify our cities as unsafe through questionable travel warnings when the same countries issuing such warnings cover up the gory violence on the streets of their own cities day by day.
He called on NEPAD to help facilitate the 'twining of sister cities relationships as the one being proposed between Lagos and Durban for other African cities to provide a common platform for destination marketing and exchange of ideas for the promotion of tourism between the different NEPAD cities.
In his own Presentation titled, Brand and Destination Marketing: Durban's New Strategic Approach, the Project Executive for Durban Tourism, Peter Bendheim, commended the plans of the Lagos State government to create new corridors of excellence while referring to the proposed Lagos Energy City and the Eko Atlantic City projects. He also led support to the position of the Lagos State government on how best to solve the image problem of the continent.

The session held by NEPAD as part of Indaba 2008, Africa's largest travel and tourism exhibition was declared open by the NEPAD Cities Convener and Mayor of Ethekwini, Cllr Obed Mlaba. Also in attendance were top government functionaries and policy makers, key actors in the African tourism sector as NEPAD's Advisor on Environment and Tourism, Estherine Lisinge Futabong, the City Manager for Durban, Dr. Michael
Sutcliffe and the ambassadors of Kenya and Mali as well as delegates from the tourism boards of Tanzania, Uganda, Botswana, Swaziland and Mozambique amongst.