By Priscilla Osaje, NEWS AGENCY OF NIGERIA 

Alhaji Nura Kangiwa, Director-General, National Institute of Hospitality and Tourism (NIHOTOUR) has called for promotion of Nigeria’s food culture to enhance tourism development and socio-economic growth.

Kangiwa made the call on Friday at the grand finale of Gastronomy Festival with the theme: “Sustainable Food Production from Farm to the Table” in Abuja.

He said that the festival was to expose professional food vendors, beverage producers and service experts to wide array of locally prepared flavours of rich cultural values.

The director-general added that such initiative would foster stronger community bonds, promote Nigerian culture worldwide and enrich global gastronomic landscape.

According to him, the festival has exposed Nigerians and global community to the professional skillful art of appreciating and exposing our foods cooking, culinary skills and cuisine to the hospitality, tourism occupational trades and the general public.

“Hence, keeping with the spirit of exposing and promoting the works of trained competencies with quality assurance and standards is germane to achieving the Institute’s mandate.

“As the UN Tourism and UN Food Organisation put it, gastronomy is the art of food. It is a style of cooking from a particular locality and region from food and cuisine.

“Sustainability is the way that is not wasteful of our natural resources and can be continued into the future without being detrimental to our environment or health,” he said.

He commended the gastronomy product value chains where the food crop was sourced, farmed, cultivated, transported, warehoused, merchandised, marketed and supplied to the food and beverage producers.

“They served and eventually plated on the table to be consumed, which further explains the theme of this year’s festival.”

He commended President Bola Tinubu’s administration for the introduction of the national development project and empowerment programme under the ‘Renewed Hope Agenda’.

NIHOTOUR boss added that ‘Renewed Hope Agenda’ was meant to create jobs for self-reliance, generate employment, boost productivity and reduce unemployment.

‘ Our goal is to collectively shape the future of Nigeria gastronomy tourism, based on its potential in empowering local communities, foster rural development and socio-economic growth.

” It is also seen as strategic priorities outlined in the UN Tourism Agenda for African Tourism for Inclusive Growth,” he said.

In his remarks, Mr Folorunsho Coker, the Director-General, Nigerian Tourism Development Authority (NDTA) said Nigerian food has been creating waves all over the world..

Coker observed that some foreign participants present at the festival were struggling with Nigerians over ‘Amala’.

‘We have the product that can be used to market tourism in Nigeria. So, we are looking forward to an opportunity when we will not just mark it as an Africa, but the world will gather in Nigeria to celebrate our occasion’.

Spanish Ambassador, Mr Juan Ignacio Sell, who said that gastronomy was definitely keys for tourism promotion, recalled that more than 85 million international tourists visited Spain last year due to gastronomy.

‘Nigeria is blessed with a very wonderful and diverse within gastronomy, but they refuse to keep it to themselves rather they decide to share it,” he said.

Mr Li Xuda, Cultural Counsellor of the Chinese Embassy in Nigeria, said that awareness had been created that food culture was an important part of the culture.

Xuda added that a lot of people knew that China and Nigeria were well-known for their splendid culture.

‘They have so many similarities in many fields, including the field of gastronomy. Since both countries have vast land and abundant resources, each region has different climate and agricultural products.

‘Our food culture has formed since the ancient time and has already been deeply rooted in our traditional culture and rapid social development which recent decades has laid a solid foundation for China and Nigeria’s food culture,’ he said.

He added that in future, both countries food culture would be better developed, people’s living standard would be further improved, and the countries sustainable development would be greatly promoted. (NAN)