The Lagos government says it received a total of 18,273 international tourist visitors in 2024.

This was announced on Tuesday in Ikeja during the public policy engagement Session with ministries, departments, and agencies in entertainment and tourism. The event was organised by the Policy Analysis Monitoring and Evaluation Department, OSSG-Cabinet Office. The figure showed an increase from 14,357 foreign tourists in 2022 to 16,798 international tourist visitors in 2023.

Speaking, the secretary to the state government, Bimbola Salu-Hundeyin, said the government was working to position Lagos State as one of the top five destinations in Africa for authentic, insightful, and exciting cultural heritage experiences.

Ms Salu-Hundeyin said Lagos was pushing the limits in terms of tourism development and attracting international visitors. The SSG said the session was to engage experts to discuss the progress made in implementing the agenda on entertainment and tourism.

She said insightful information shared during the session would be analysed by the policy analysis, monitoring, and evaluation department to further their mandate.

Oladele Oyatope, head of Policy Analysis, Monitor, and Evaluation Department, Cabinet Office, said the department’s mandate was to collect, aggregate, review, and analyse data, toward tracking progress in state government services.

Mr Oyatope said the meeting aimed to review the goals and indicators of the fifth pillar of the T.H.E.M.E.S. Plus Agenda, which focused on entertainment and tourism. He said the two key documents guiding tourism in Lagos State were the Tourism Master Plan 2020-2040 and the Lagos State Tourism Policy.

According to him, the specific goals of the Tourism Master Plan include, by 2040, increasing tourism receipts to $5.1 billion and expanding tourism direct jobs to 1.1 million, among other targets.

He said there was a need for more sensitisation to raise awareness of the government’s tourism initiatives.

Mr Oyatope said there was a need to improve branding, advocacy, and the promotion of the state’s heritage and cultural practices to attract more tourists.

“A major thing that we need to improve upon, of course, is in the area of branding, in the area of advocacy, in the area of promoting the states, so that we have more people developing interest in what to come to Lagos state for their tourism needs,” he said.

(NAN)