18th November, 2020
Mr Ahmed Sule, Deputy Director, Media and Public Relations of NIHOTOUR, has said the National Institute for Hospitality and Tourism (NIHOTOUR) has restated its commitment to collaborate with the Chinese Embassy, to enhance staff capacity building, in a bid to enhance its service delivery mandate.
This was issued in a statement when the Director-General of NIHOTOUR, Alhaji Nura Kangiwa, paid a courtesy visit to the office of the Economic and Commercial Counselor, Mr Wu Lyufan, at the Chinese Embassy in Abuja.
Kangiwa said that the collaboration with the Chinese Embassy on building the capacity of the Institute’s staff would help to enhance their performance in delivering the Institute’s mandate of providing personnel training for the Nigerian Travel Tourism and Hospitality industry.
He observed that China has a global reputation in manpower training and development, particularly its skills acquisition and hands-on training, which NIHOTOUR would be delighted to benefit from.
The NIHOTOUR boss reiterated the commitment and resolve of the Federal Government to revitalize all sectors of the economy, in the light of the challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic, saying that “the travel, tourism and hospitality sub-sector was hardest hit by the pandemic, due to restrictions placed on the movement of people globally.
“Since its establishment over three decades ago, NIHOTOUR has trained over 10,000 certified International Air Transport Association (IATA) personnel in the nation’s Travel and Tourism industry. It has also attained the best IATA training centre status in Africa and among the top 10 best IATA training centres globally.
“The Institute will do better if its staff receive training and retraining to upscale their knowledge, in line with new global skills and innovations in personnel training for the travel tourism and hospitality industry.”
Responding, Mr Lyufan expressed pleasure over the visit, stressing that his office would do everything possible to secure training slots for NIHOTOUR staff in China as soon as the embargo placed on training due to the Covid-19 pandemic was lifted.
He said Chinese Government, as well as, the people of China, were keenly interested in the culture and traditions of Nigeria, as such, they welcomed the cultural interface between the two countries and exchange of training programs.
According to him, Chinese people were great travellers and would like to make Nigeria their preferred tour destination, in view of its rich cultural heritage and vibrant traditions which are strong tourism attractions.
The Counselor pledged to continue to offer all necessary support to NIHOTOUR, based on the cordial relationship that already exists between the Embassy and the Institute.