Experts from Nigeria, others to meet in Lome over Regional Tourism Policy, ECOTOUR 19-29 Action Plan
Private Sector Directorate of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Commission is set to organise a three-day technical meeting for tourism experts who are expected deliberate amending and validating the new regulatory texts for tourist accommodation establishments on the sub-region.
The meeting expected to run from April 3 to 5 is part of the implementation of its Revised Treaty, a developed Regional Tourism Policy accompanied by an ECOTOUR 19-29 Action Plan, with the collaboration of the Member States, including Nigeria.
According to ECOWAS, the analysis of the sub-region’s destination has thus highlighted the strength and weakness of the regulatory system and the low level of tourism services as a major handicap for the development of this sector ‘whose potential could serve as a driving force for our economies.’
“To this end, the ECOTOUR 19-29, was developed in its programme n°5, which dictates the development of the regulatory framework, hotels classification criteria and control systems.
“While sourcing inspiration from international standards applied to tourist accommodation infrastructures around the world, the ECOWAS Member States wish, in a harmonized and innovative way, to define a new regulation by: Affirming national cultural and architectural identities; Considering the environment and the climate; and Creating labels and certificate that will be specific to the West African Region.
“The updating of the regulations responds to the major issues facing the West African region, namely: Unfair competition of hotellike; New forms of tourist accommodation such as ecolodges, guest houses, and others; Security context which imposes the reinforcement of security and safety devices in the accommodation premises; Need for harmonized procedures for hotels classification; as well as; Inexistence of a control mechanism at regional level.
“The drafting process was divided into 5 phases that started in 2019. Phases 1 & 2 have come to an end with the provision of a preliminary draft of texts, amended and validated at Expert level by the Member States, which was followed by phases 3 and 4, with a focus on the following points: Development of the Tourist accommodation establishments classification scoring table for each category; Elaboration of the harmonized grid of control and allocation of grades by categories; Proposal of ECOWAS labels and signage for the different categories; Proposal for a regional mechanism for dissemination and enforcement of regulations; and Proposal of digitalization of the regional TAE ranking,” the sub-regional body detailed.
According to the organisers, by adopting the regulations of tourist accommodation establishments in Lomé, ECOWAS destination will now have a harmonized, standardized, qualitative and competitive accommodation offer composed of: Hotels, ecolodges, motels, apart’hotels, and hostels.
