Considering Entrepreneurship in Tourism for Sustainable Development in Nigeria

Abstract

Tourism is an aged- long activity in human social living, the need to engage in tourist activities that is born out of the nature of human being, to explore the world beyond their immediate environment. More recent than ever, tourism activities have increased globally due to the emergence of globalization and the ever increasing zeal of the people to engage in leisure activities. The increase in tourist activities globally has made many governments all over the world to put vested interest in the development of the sector due to their discovery that development of tourism could be used as an effective tool to revitalize their economies. Through entrepreneurial investment in tourism, some countries with enormous tourism potentials has been able to develop their tourism sector successfully while many others especially in the developing countries like Nigeria has not been doing well in this regard. Despite the availability of enormous tourism products in Nigeria, the country is yet to develop most of its tourism products to meet modern international standard. This article argued that lack of appropriate entrepreneurial mindset suitable enough to promote tourism entrepreneurship of both the government and the people could be held responsible for such a situation. In this regard, the paper recommended that promoting entrepreneurial investment in tourism (tourism entrepreneurship) could be used as veritable tool to rejuvenate the moribund economic situation of the country and could also be used to change the status of the country from a developing to a sustainable developed nation.