Otunba Olusegun Runsewe, the Director General of Nigerian Tourism Development Corporation (NTDC), has stressed the need to reawaken the 774 local governments to identity the tourism potential of their areas.
Runsewe made the statement on Thursday when the project Director of ‘Naija 7 Wonders’, Mr Ikechi Uko, and members of his committee paid him a courtesy visit in Abuja.
He said Nigeria had enormous tourism potential that could be harnessed to boost its image.
“Some of the local governments do not know the tourism potential that they have, we need to promote the tourism destination and the state government must be involved.
“We need to market our destination for tourism to thrive,” Runsewe said.
?He commended the committee for identifying the seven major tourism sites and encouraged them not to relent in their effort on tourism development.
Earlier, Uko listed the seven wonders of Nigeria as Idanre Hills, Osun Grove, Obudu mountain resort, Benin Moat, Kano City Wall, Sukur Kingdom and the National War Museum in Umuahia.
Uko stressed the need to build a body of locations that were `must see’ for every Nigerian and visitor and could be universally recognised and promoted as tourism destinations.
“The seven wonders will excite the nation as everyone will be interested in the results and will deliver dividends to the sites,” he said.
Uko said the selection of the sites was done by a 50- man committee of professionals.
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