Gov Makinde’s Commitment To Tourism Devt In Oyo State Paying Off – Dr Olatubosun

*Says hospitality investments rises from 1,328 in 2019 to 12,128 in 2024

By; BAYO AKAMO, Ibadan

Oyo State Commissioner for Culture and Tourism, Dr Wasiu Olatubosun, has disclosed that Gov Seyi Makinde’s commitment to the development of tourism sector has yielded many positive results in the last two years.

The commissioner who said this on Tuesday at the Omituntun 2.0 Inter-Ministerial Briefing held at the Governor’s Office Briefing Room, Secretariat, Agodi, stressed that Gov Makinde is developing the tourism sector and ensuring that it forms a key component of his economic expansion agenda

Dr Olatubosun maintained that with the government putting in place key tourism enablers such as road infrastructure, security and the political will as well as the creation of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism in 2023, Oyo state has witnessed tremendous turnaround in the tourism sector.

“With the help of the governor, who has put in place a conducive environment for tourism to thrive, we have achieved many things in the tourism sector in the last two years of Omituntun 2.0. I always tell people that for tourism to thrive, you need four things and the governor has done all these four things”, he said.

Dr Olatubosun added, “The first one is security. People will not go to an environment that is not secure; neither will they come to invest in such an environment. Governor Makinde has succeeded in putting in place a security architecture that helped in securing the state under Omituntun 1.0 and he has built on that under Omituntun 2.0″.

“The second is that for tourism to thrive, there must be infrastructure development; road infrastructure, aviation infrastructure and all that. Before this administration came in, we had seven isolated zones and the roads linking them were in terrible conditions”.

He stressed” If you wanted to go from one zone to another, it would take you long hours. Today, the governor has succeeded in connecting all the zones of the state with quality road networks”

” The governor knew that to have a modern Oyo State, there was the need to interconnect all the zones. This interconnectivity and security have helped to bring people into Oyo state Another important factor is political will. The governor has demonstrated that to drive tourism, you need political will. So, the governor created the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and he put together people who can deliver on the mandate.

“Today, we have achieved a massive increment in the number of visitors and tourists coming to Oyo state. This happened because of our efforts as a government.The second success story is that there is a boom in the hospitality business in the state.”

According to Dr Olatubosun “There is no way one can measure the success if it does not have a bearing on investments coming into the state. Before we came in, the number of hospitality businesses including hotels, night clubs, event centres, eateries and restaurants and tour agencies was 1,328.

The Commissioner pointed out that the turnaround has also led to increased tourists inflow as well as a massive boost in the hospitality sector, and that while the state had a record of 1,328 hospitality businesses as of May 29, 2019, the number of investments in hospitality businesses increased to 12,128 by December 2024.

” Another success is that before we came in, Oyo state didn’t have any cultural festival recognised internationally. But because of Governor Makinde’s commitment to making culture and tourism thrive, having recognised that culture drives tourism, we have succeeded in having the World Sango Festival enlisted by UNESCO as a cultural heritage. It used to be known as Sango Oyo Festival.

“The fourth one is the first International Tourism Summit that took place last year. It recorded a huge success and the governor is building on that success by also putting in place a very powerful committee in conjunction with our consultant, which has slated July 22-24, 2025 for the summit.”