Ogun State Government has trained no fewer than 100 tourism officers to improve their productivity by equipping them with the necessary skills, knowledge, values and competency for effective service delivery.
The tourism officers were drawn from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism in the state.
Speaking while flagging off the one-day training programme on Thursday, in Abeokuta, the commissioner for Culture and Tourism, Adijat Adeleye-Oladapo said, the skills and knowledge gained by staff of the ministry would not only help them to build on their professional competence, but would allow them to feel valued.
She said, the training was necessary to enable the tourism officers acquire necessary skills and knowledge which would help them conform international best practice.
The commissioner disclosed that, the ministry has commenced the expansion of the scope of tourism in the state with the aim of bringing in more investments through Public-Private Partnership.
Her words: “Any organisation that does not believe in capacity building has already failed. Wherever you find yourself, there is a need to upgrade yourself in order to conform with today’s reality and with international best practice.
“Some of them are tourism officers, some of them are cultural officers a lot of things have changed since the time they left schools, we are now in a digitalized world, so there is a need to upgrade and continue to upgrade them through this type of training.
“The only way that we can get the best of tourism officers is through capacity building. This training is very important and timely as it presents the opportunity to impact the knowledge and necessary information to the officers for optimal performance.
“As you may be aware, the purpose of training is to enable members of staff gain new skills and knowledge that can improve their performance and efficiency. It is an established fact that skills and knowledge gained by employees or staff would not only help to build on their professional competence, but it allows them to feel valued.
“This training will afford them opportunities that will allow them to be more driven towards their professional goals. When staff receive trainings, they are likely to take on higher responsibilities, which help them to improve their productivity, time management, job satisfaction, morale and at the same time motivate them to embrace learning opportunities.
“Whatever they are learning here today will rub-off on their work and that increase their performance at work and by extension increase our revenue generation drive in the ministry”.
One of the resource persons at the workshop, Charles Ukomadu called for more funding of the tourism sector.
Ukomadu, who is tourism consultant and the Special Adviser to the Institute for Tourism Professionals of Nigeria (ITPN), South-West zone said, if properly funded, tourism could sustain the country’s economy.
