Abuja — It has become clear that intending tourists to Nigeria encounter enormous problems while trying to procure entry documents. This fact, according to findings, necessitated a one-day workshop organized recently, at the Transcorp Hilton Hotel, Abuja by the New Economic Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD).

It was an occasion which attracted sectors that have to do with visitors to the country especially tourists. They include the Nigerian Immigration Service, Customs Service, Culture and Tourism Ministry, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), security agencies, travel agencies, and other stakeholders. The topic of the workshop, was: "Easing entry formalities particularly issuance of visa to potential tourists/visitors to Nigeria."

In his keynote address, the Special Adviser to the president on NEPAD, Ambassador Tunji Olagunju, explained that travel and tourism, is very sensitive to social issues. "Making issuance of visa cumbersome removes the key travel motivation for the tourist (it dries up the expectation of the tourist) and the appeal and intrinsic value of the destination is lost," he said.

The NEPAD boss said that all over the world, efforts are continued to be made towards improving immigration procedures, which are often slow and cumbersome. According to him, "we must therefore ensure that applicant friendly policies that encourage potential Tourists/Visitors must be put in place."

He cited the example of South African Development Community (SADC) region, which is exploring the possibility of introducing a 'Shengen type' tourist visa to give tourists simplified formalities in regional travel to SADC member countries. "Both initiatives seek to introduce a single entry visa", he said, pointing out that in the ECOWAS sub-region, there is a plan to handle similar concerns, like the 'free movement of persons.'

Olagunju therefore proffered that "the introduction of Visa at entry Point, Visa Exemptions and simply supplying landing cards and Visa application forms will contribute towards easy entry." He said that this will mitigate the negative attributes of the image of Nigeria which will further pave way for in-flow of visitors with the attendance result of economic growth.

In her own paper titled "Forex Liberalization; Rules and Regulations and the effect on the growth of Tourism in Nigeria", Mrs. Omolara Akanji, former director of Trade and Exchange with the CBN, said that the choice of appropriate exchange rate regime has been the preoccupation of the CBN since the first move to liberalize exchange control in 1986.

"Nigeria has moved from regulated to deregulated exchange rate regime and currently the exchange rate is managed with guarded deregulation", she said, noting that the overvalued Naira exchange rate during 1970 to 1980 was corrected with the introduction of Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) in 1986. She explained that this is "with the objective of achieving realistic exchange rate by ensuring the equilibrium of the Balance of Payment (BOP) and also remove distortions in the management of the exchange rate."

Earlier in her welcome address, the Acting Director of Programmes Development and Implementation (PDI) of NEPAD Nigeria, Mrs. Godiya Yohanna, observed that tourism is a big business, no matter where in the world one is.

"In a challenging world order, visa is the first point of defence against security which includes illegal immigration, narcotics trafficking, smuggling, organized crimes, terrorism, regional conflict, asylum seekers etc," she said, pointing out that visa is therefore all about "border management dynamics."