16 November 2008
Lagos State Government at the weekend officially took delivery of the prestigious Sunborn Yacht Hotel recently acquired by the Fashola administration and reputed to be one of the few major tourism destinations in the world.
The 105-bedroom custom made boat hotel moored at the Marina waterfront since Sunday, November 11, has become an exciting spectacle with many passers-by stopping to catch a glimpse or taking photographs with their telephone devices.
Speaking while receiving the floating hotel facility, Lagos State commissioner for tourism and inter-governmental relations, Senator Tokunbo Afikuyomi, described the transfer of the hotel to Lagos as a landmark achievement of Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola, meant to reposition Lagos as a tourism destination, saying, "for Lagos, Africa and indeed the Middle East, this has now become the flagship and a project heralding the dawn of a new era in the Nigerian tourism sector."
The obviously elated Afikuyomi described the yacht hotel as a delightful addition to the Lagos skyline as it is going to add value by being one of the very few floating hotels in the world thereby putting Lagos in the league of cities like New York, Barcelona, Paris and Finland just as it has already put the state ahead of cities like Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Doha which are said to be at various stages of setting up similar floating hotels.
The commissioner credited the speed and success of the acquisition to the healthy relationship between the Fashola administration and the organized private sector in the state, saying, "Though this is a fully funded private sector initiative only facilitated by the state government to achieve the set objectives of the administration for the development of tourism in the state, it is on record as one of the quickest PPP transactions prosecuted to fruition in less than one year from conception.
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