By Elizabeth ADENUGA
La Campagne Tropicana Beach Resort, Ibeji-Lekki, says exploration of tourism potential in the community has generated huge employment opportunities for youths and improved fishing occupation of residents, among others.
Its President, Mr Wanle Akinboboye, made this known
on Monday during a tour of the community in preparation for the Tourism Innovation and Development Advantage Conference (TIDA) slated for April 24.
Theme of the conference is: “Impact of Sustainable Tourism Development and Marketing of Tourism Destinations on Host Communities.”
According to Akinboboye, locating the resort in Ibeji-Lekki Community had generated huge employment opportunities for youths, improved fishing preoccupation of residents, improved security and commercial activities.
“This had in turn delivered remarkable growth for the residents and community as a whole.
“I have been an instrument to the creation of over two to three million jobs in Nigeria from tourism, security and entertainment.
“When we came here, there were about 10 or 15 fishing boats; today, there are over 2,000 fishing boats.
“The number of concrete houses in the village was approximately 10 when we got here; now is over two thousand.
“We even had to build a fence to demarcate the resort because they were beginning to build into the resort,” he said.
Akinboboye said communities that have tourism development usually have relative peace, because everyone benefits from it, as tourism could be such an effective and engaging tool.
He said that tourism activities around the community had also heightened commercial activities, thereby creating prosperity and wealth directly for the local community.
Akinboboye called on Nigerians to have proper exploration of the grassroots tourism potential for economic development.
According to him, You can’t imagine the trickle-down effect of tourism; we have 774 local governments in Nigeria.
“There is no local government that does not have one attraction or the other that is bigger than all of what people run to do in most foreign countries.
“The brains and power of the continent reside in the 774 local governments.
“The geniuses of this world are in the local governments, but their inability to communicate in a language that is not theirs had been great hinderance.
“For example, if you pay N1 million salary in a month here, 50 per cent of that goes into the village; when N1000 goes into this environment, it is like N10,000.
“The trickle-down effect to families, friends and associates, all of that play a major role in economic development.
“What that also does is that it stops the urban drift, and eradicate to a large extent the issue of Area Boys,” he said. ===NAN
