The President of Nigeria Travel Week and Chief Executive Officer, Avantgarde Tours, Mr Efetobo Awhana, has pledged to support the cultural-tourism drive of the Ekiti State Governor, Dr Kayode Fayemi, via branding, marketing and facilitating tours to Ekiti.
Mr Awhana who was led by Director-General Ekiti State Council for Arts and Culture and Chairman, Ekiti State Tourism Development Task Force, Ambassador Wale Ojo-Lanre on a courtesy visit to the Commissioner for Art, Culture and Tourism, Prof Rasaki Ojo-Bakare said he was on a tour of Ekiti State to see for himself the tourism potentialities of the state and how he could contribute his own quota to its development.
He commended Prof Ojo-Bakare for setting up the tourism development task force in Ekiti describing it as a stitch in time.
Mr Awhana said “I am endeared to Ekiti State by the flurry of cultural-tourism activities being churned out from the state in the last 12 months and the passion of the art, culture and tourism administrators in the state who seems to be in a hurry at lifting the tourism potentialities of the state from patent economic obscurity to buoyancy.”
He disclosed that these activities have planted Ekiti in the front row of cultural tourism states in Nigeria and have cultivated immeasurable respect and adulation to the national perception of the personality of Governor Kayode Fayemi.
Mr Awhana disclosed that Dr Fayemi is undoubtedly the most culturally friendly Governor in Nigeria with a clear cut cultural-tourism policy with the strategic mechanism of implementation.
He said his organisation would partner Ekiti on a number of a symbiotic cultural-tourism projects and he would always market the state on a global platform.
Responding, Prof Bakare applauded the act of Mr Awhana describing it as patriotic and progressive.
He assured him of the readiness of the state to partner and collaborate with tourism stakeholders who have something beneficial to offer Ekiti State.
Prof Ojo-Bakare enjoined him to enjoy a robust discussion with the Chairman of Ekiti State Tourism Development Task Force, Ambassador Ojo-Lanre, who with his team has been saddled with the onerous task of jump-starting the tourism economy of the state.
