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Stakeholders across Nigeria’s tourism and hospitality industry have endorsed a hybrid governance framework that combines statutory regulation with professional recognition as the most sustainable model for developing a globally competitive workforce.
The recommendation emerged at the NIHOTOUR Stakeholder Engagement Forum held on Wednesday, where academics, industry practitioners, regulators and professional bodies deliberated on strengthening professionalism and human capital development in the sector.
Presenting the keynote paper, Professor Wasiu Babalola, Professor of Hotel Management and Tourism at Atiba University, Oyo, legal practitioner and PhD candidate at the Faculty of Law, Lead City University, argued that while the NIHOTOUR Act 2022 marked a major milestone in regulating the industry, legislation alone cannot guarantee professional stability.
Speaking on the theme, “Strategic Roles of Industry Associations and Professional Bodies in Workforce Registration, Certification, Licensing and Sustainable Human Capital Development,” Babalola said Nigeria’s tourism ecosystem continues to grapple with fragmented regulation, overlapping institutional responsibilities, inconsistent certification, weak professional identity and inadequate workforce data.
He proposed a Hybrid Professional Governance Framework anchored on the Professional Recognition by Professional Practice (PRPP) model, which would allow recognised professional bodies to oversee continuing professional development, ethical standards, practitioner engagement and specialised competence development, while NIHOTOUR retains responsibility for statutory regulation, certification, licensing, standards and the national workforce register.
According to him, the framework draws from successful governance models in the legal, medical, engineering, architecture and accounting professions, where regulators establish minimum standards while professional bodies drive ethics, competency development and peer recognition.
Babalola also maintained that Section 4 of the NIHOTOUR Act 2022 already provides the legal foundation for collaboration between the Institute and professional bodies in training, certification and capacity development, making partnership rather than institutional rivalry the ideal approach.
The proposed roadmap includes recognition of credible professional bodies, competency-based certification, delineation of professional practice areas, development of Standard Operating Procedures, a National Digital Tourism and Hospitality Workforce Register, mandatory Continuing Professional Development and stronger collaboration among government, academia and industry.
In his welcome address, NIHOTOUR Director-General, Aare Abisoye Fagade, stressed that building a globally competitive tourism workforce requires sustained partnerships among government, academia and the private sector.
Stakeholders at the forum described the proposal as a practical framework capable of eliminating duplication of functions, strengthening institutional collaboration, improving workforce quality and enhancing Nigeria’s competitiveness in the global tourism and hospitality industry. They also urged NIHOTOUR to sustain stakeholder consultations to refine the proposal into an industry-wide consensus.
Babalola added that, “Professionalisation is strongest when statutory authority and professional recognition work together, not in competition, but in partnership,” while acknowledging the Faculty of Law, Lead City University, Ibadan, for supporting the doctoral research underpinning the proposal.
