Policy Choices for Sustainable Tourism Development in Nigeria

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.