The deputy secretary general of the UNWTO Commission for Africa (CAF), Dr. Taleb Rifai, made this known at the on going 47th meeting of the WTO in Abuja.
Rifai said the results are a confirmation of the long term forecasts issued by the UNWTO in 1995, predicting that international arrivals would reach the 800 million mark in 2005.
He said "the conservative estimates which have been revised predict 1.1 billion arrivals in 2010 and 1.6 billion in 2020, indicating that tourism is on its way to doubling the size of the market in terms of physical flows within the span of one generation".
In the case of Africa that registered 44 million international arrivals, the deputy secretary noted that all parts of the continent performed well, whether in the Northern Africa or Sub-Saharan Africa.
This, he confirmed, is despite the structural disadvantages the region has had to endure, thus confirming its upward flight.
According to him, Nigeria has benefited from the technical assistance of the UNWTO in the preparation of its tourism development master plan "and from now on, tourism will form part of the priority sectors that the government will rely upon in order to diversify the national economy.
"Tourism is recognised as an effective instrument for poverty reduction and as a fast growing sector, that if its development is planned in a well managed manner, can contribute to the creation of wealth and employment especially among the most disadvantaged groups, such as youth and women", he confirmed.
Rifai, who pointed out that the sector can also serve as a driving force for an economy like Nigeria which has been long dependent on oil, maintained that tourism is destined to play the role of a catalyst for the promotion of the country's rich and varied culture.
"This is why the WTO's technical cooperation projects in Africa have been on the rise. The principal areas covered are human resources development, the sustainable development of tourism and quality, tourism marketing and promotion, statistics and the measurement of the economic impact of tourism and Information Communication Technologies", he revealed.
It has further employed more than 2,847 tourism workers in the public and private sectors, and they have benefited from the capacity building activities in partnership with the governments of the countries of the region.
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