The National Institute for Hospitality and Tourism (NIHOTOUR), in line with its mandate, will kick off today, December 1, a national registration of all personnel working in the tourism industry. The Director General of the agency, Dr. Abisoye Fagade disclosed this. According to Fagade, the institute will unveil a portal for registration today, Sunday, December 1, for the commencement of the national registration, and registration will 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 realized 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 tomorrow (today),  as the first step, we are starting off with the national registration of all personnel free of charges between now(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.

So, in my first week, 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 the standard and sanity of the industry.  And to bring standard and sanity, you know what it entails. It is a lot of work.  I will be unfolding a lot of things as we go along, but the first one is from the December 1, you are allowed to come and register on our platform for free.  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.