UTILIZING LOCAL CONTENTS AND ADDRESSING THE CHALLENGES OF HOSPITALITY AND TOURISM IN NIGERIA

Abstract

Tourism is everything and anything that has creative or natural capacity to arouse people’s
interest to move from place to place. The study used content analysis to examine the utility of local
contents for hospitality and tourism and ways to address the challenges of hospitality and tourism
in Nigeria. Nigeria’s local contents for tourism are natural resources and man-made features.
These natural resources and man-made features are ocean beaches, Nigeria’s vegetation, the
Nigerian slave routes, wildlife, games reserves and wetlands, arts and crafts, festivals, monuments,
sites and museums. Nigeria local contents for hospitality are food and cuisine. Foods: Moi-moi,
Akara, Massa and Danwake. Soups: efo riro soup, egussi soup, edikanggikong soup, Ogbono soup,
okoho soup, nsala soup, ofe-owerri soup, fisherman soup, owho soup, rivers native soup,
groundnut soup, gbegiri soup, okazi soup, okro soup, oha soup, miyan kuka, banga soup, and
pepper soup. Drinks: Zobo and Palm Wine, Kunungyada, Kunun Aya and Kunun Accha. Fruits:
mangoes, orange and banana. The challenges of hospitality and tourism in Nigeria are poor
infrastructural amenities, poverty hinders domestic tourism, barrier to tourism is the absence of
organisational and infrastructural capacity at a national level, corruption is another serious
deterrent as it undermines government efficiency, deters potentials investors in the tourism
industry and scares off investors, safety and security is one notorious barrier to the sector,
packaging and showcasing of Nigeria tourism products is at its lowest, attitude and image is vital
tourism performance, human resources, branding issue such as instilling authenticity of local
culture, technology, customer issues, etc. These challenges have locked Nigeria out of the benefits
that the hospitality and tourism industries can offer. It has been recommended that concerted
efforts should be made to address the mentioned challenges that are positive action must be taken
by three main constituencies: host communities, host governments, and foreign stakeholders