Regulatory Framework and the Nigeria Tourism Economy

International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) | Volume IV, Issue XII, December 2020 | ISSN 2454–6186

Regulatory Framework and the Nigeria Tourism Economy

Yekinni Ojo BELLO, PhD¹, Mercy Busayo BELLO^2
1University of Port Harcourt, Faculty of Management Sciences, Department of Hospitality Management and Tourism
Choba, Rivers State, Nigeria
²Federal Polytechnic Auchi, School of Applied Sciences, Department of Hospitality Management Auchi, Edo State, Nigeria.

ABSTRACT
Purpose- This paper examines the extent feasible tourism regulatory framework can contribute to unlocking Nigeria tourism economy.
Research Methodology- The study been an exploratory study, reviewed various reports and previous literature in this domain of study upon which insightful inferences were made.
Findings- The study finds that Nigeria can only maximise her tourism economy potentials if tourism regulatory framework gear towards environmental sustainability, a secure and safe Nigeria, prioritisation of the tourism sector, and promotion of health and sanitary practices are galvanized.
Research Implications– By establishing five major areas of tourism regulatory framework, the study offers an insight on the need for the government of Nigeria to vigorously purse effort to sustaining her environment for accelerated tourism business development, taking decisive action to overhauling her security architecture, urgently restore tourism to a full ministry status as against the current merger of the sector including, a bold step to appoint experts as minister of tourism. Others include, announcement in clear terms the plan by the country to become open defecation free country by year 2025.
Originality: This study is the first to establish the connection between regulatory framework and the Nigeria tourism economy. The study argues that feasible tourism regulatory framework has the capacity to remodeling the Nigeria choking tourism economy.

Keywords: Tourism Economy, Regulatory Framework, Oil Economy, Nigeria.

INTRODUCTION

A regulatory framework is essential for effective management, operation and maintenance of sustainable tourism economy of countries. The fortune of tourism economy in any socio-economic setting, like other sectors of the economy, is shaped by well-designed regulatory framework. This implies that the legal and regulatory regime have the most far-reaching positive impact on tourism economy performance of countries. There is no doubt that Nigeria ranks among the most privileged nations of the world in terms of endowment of tourism resources (Okoli, 2001; Bello & Bello, 2017). Despite the huge tourism resources in Nigeria, the tourism economy performance of the country is undesirable. An analysis of available recent statistics shows that the Nigeria tourism economy is not performing competitively compared to other countries in Africa (Bello, 2018). It was reported that Sub-Saharan Africa attracted 36 million out of 54 million (67%) international tourists that visited Africa in 2017 and earned USD$ 25 million put at 74% of the total tourist receipts in Africa (UNWTO, 2018). This seems to be an attractive performance compared to African region performance generally. However, tourist arrival in Nigeria in the year under review is below expectation as report has it that Nigeria is lagging far behind South Africa that attracted 8,904 million international tourists, Zimbabwe (2,057 million), Mozambique (1,552 million), Mauritania (1,152 million), Kenya (1,114 million), and Cape Verde (520 Million) (UNWTO, 2018). In terms of international tourist receipts, Nigeria earned USD$ 404 million put at 1.2% of the entire international tourist receipts accrued to Sub-Sahara Africa (UNWTO, 2018). The index in the above information shows a poor performance of the Nigeria tourism economy.
It is pertinent to state that many factors may be responsible for this poor performance of the Nigeria tourism economy. Major among this factor is absence of feasible tourism regulatory framework. A well-designed tourism regulatory framework gives clear guidelines on sustainable tourism economy development.
The problem essentially that call for this study is that limited study had examined elements of regulatory framework capable of maximizing sustainable tourism economy in Nigeria. Hence, the current study aims to explore and propose feasible regulatory framework for sustainable development of tourism economy in Nigeria. The outcome of this study is expected to contribute to literature practicable regulatory framework for workable tourism economy development in emerging country like Nigeria.

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