The National Institute for Hospitality and Tourism (NIHOTOUR), in line with its mandate, has kicked off the National Registration of Tourism Personnel for all individuals working in the tourism industry. The newly appointed Director General of the agency, Dr. Abisoye Fagade disclosed this.
According to Fagade, the institute will unveil a portal for registration from Sunday, December 1, for the commencement of the national registration, and registration would be free for the first 45 days, from December 1, 2024, to January 15, 2025.
Fagade explained further on the registration: “What is the mandate of NIHOTOUR? It is simple and straightforward: we are supposed to identify, register, certify, train, retrain, if possibly, all the personnel in hospitality and tourism industry. Immediately I joined in, I realised that it is a huge job, that I can’t do by myself. Like every other parastatal, fund is never available but that has never been a barrier for me.
“So we are starting off with the national registration of all personnel free of charges between December 1 2024 and January 15, 2025. If you work with the hotel, you work with the night club, you work within tourism environment, you work as a waiter, room cleaner, as a manager in a hotel, all the personnel at every level, we are pleading for them to go on our website that we would publish, and register for free. It is a way of identifying ourselves. Let’s know you.”
Fagade said the registration was the first project he would embark upon as the new director general of the institute. He said: “I am announcing that we are starting the registration, and we are being benevolent. We are doing it this time around for free. We are not asking anybody for a dime. We are saying, come around, let’s know you. That is where we are starting first. And in my four years tenure, we would make sure that we bring standard and sanity to the industry. And to bring standard and sanity, you know what it entails. It is a lot of work. If you don’t register between now and January 15, 2025, after that we will now ask you for money.”
The new NIHOTOUR Director General said he would further unveil other activities of the institute in the days to come.