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NIGERIAN TOURISM INDUSTRY: A KEY VALUE DRIVER IN EMPLOYMENT GENERATION

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1  BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Tourism is one of the world’s largest and rapidly growing industries. In the 21st century, global economy is driven by three major industries includes technology, telecommunication and tourism (Adeleke, 2005). Tourism is the collection of activities, services and industries that deliver a travel experience including attractions, transportations, accommodations, eating and drinking establishments of retail shops, entertainment, business and other hospitality services provided for individuals or groups of travelling away from home (Dayananda, 2014).

In 2013, Travel and Tourism’s total contribution to the global economy rose to 9.5% of global GDP. In total, nearly 266 million jobs (8.9% of total employment) were supported by Travel and Tourism in 2013 (1 in 11 of all jobs in the world) (WTTC, 2014). According to ILO Global Dialogue Forum on New Developments and Challenge report, even though international tourism is affected by the global economic and social crisis, it is anticipated that the tourism sections global economy to provide 296 million jobs by 2019 so that tourism has the potential to become a major generator of job.

Tourism is extremely labour intensive and a significant source of employment. It is among the world’s top creators of jobs requiring varying degrees of skills and allows for quick entry into the workforce for youth, women and migrant workers (International labour organization, 2010). In some countries, the contribution of tourism for employment is indispensible; for instance, India is the second largest employment generator in the field of tourism as large as 25 million jobs Chandrakanta Sahoo’s cited in Dayananda, [2]. In Ethiopia, the total contribution of Travel and Tourism to GDP was ETB 91, 898.4 million (9.3% of GDP) and there was 2,291,500 jobs in 2014 (8.5% of total employment) World Travel and Tourism Tourism (WTTC, 2015).

Tourism and hospitality industries create many employment opportunities in different areas like accommodations, transportation, attractions sites. Therefore, the availability of skilled and trained manpower is a crucial element in the success of any tourism development plan or programme, hence employees is a sine qua non of tourism industry. However, the constraints of employment in tourism industry are unstable employment, low job status, long antisocial working hours and low pay. The immediate and most obvious consequences of such a situation is the difficulty of recruiting suitable staff and high staff turnover, these are costly to the success of the industry.

Indeed, less due attentions have been giving to employees working in tourism and hospitality sectors. However, staffs are the heart for excellent and prompt service delivery system. Thus, such staffs are arguably the most indispensable assets of the organization. The relationship between human resources and tourism can be expressed in two main aspects. First, tourism can only flourish if the industry can employ an adequate supply of good quality staff or sustainable workforce. The other issue is that the way in which staffs are treated by both managers and customers and vice versa should be in line with social equality and justice. Equally important, the quality of tourists’ experiences and images in a destination is highly depending on employees’ professionalism. Therefore, this study is aimed to give summarized information on Nigerian terrorism industry as a key to employment generation and indicated the implication of the findings to concerned stake holders including, academicians, policy makers and business owners of tourism and hospitality so as to take actions to bring sustainable work force in the industry.