Abstract:
Sustainable tourism development meets the needs of the present day tourists and host
regions while protecting and enhancing opportunities for the future requires coherent
and congruent policy formulation. As generalized statements of intentions of how to
formulate tourism development plans or programmes, tourism policies need to be
systematically examined before the choices are made between alternatives. Nigeria as
a developing country with enormous tourism development potentials is unable to
manage tourism towards sustainable development. Although the country has put in
place a package of tourist based development policies, the problem is attributable to
the lack of proper tourism policy commitment and the wide gap existing between
tourism policy goals and achievements. The main objective of this study is therefore
to examine the policy options for the sustainability of the tourism sector in Nigeria,
based on the extensive survey of literature and national statutory planning and policy
documents. The study reveals certain major implementation gaps in the identified
tourism policy options and concludes with some recommendations that should be
considered by the policy makers, toward achieving the goal of sustainable tourism
development.
