The Senior Special Assistant (SSA) to Bayelsa State Governor on Tourism and Facilitator of the South South Tourism Roundtable Initiative, Dr. Piriye Kiyaramo has assured that Gov. Douye Diri is poised to promote and market sustainable peace culture in Bayelsa through tourism for social transformation and prosperity.
Dr. Kiyaramo gave the assurance when a delegation of the Ijaw Initiative, a Lagos based Ijaw socio-cultural organisation, led by the founder, Ms. Ronke Kuro Fakunda, organisers of the Ijaw Nation Day Festival in Lagos, visited him in his office in Yenagoa on Thursday.
He noted that peace facilitates tourism and allows people to know each other, work with each other, and learn to appreciate each other’s cultures, hence tourism is referred to as “the world’s peace industry.”
The governor’s aide maintained that Bayelsa, being one of the most peaceful states in the country is well positioned to play a central role in promoting peace tourism and global harmony, adding that there was no better way to promote understanding and trust among people than through the direct contact offered by the tourism industry.
Dr. Kiyaramo, popularly known as Mr. Tourism, reiterated the fact that tourism has become a veritable tool for exchange of ideas, learning and appreciation of different cultures, describing it as a means of promoting moral and intellectual base for international understanding, respect, confidence and shared goals and aspirations.
“Tourism is also a means of achieving the social and economic development of the third world nations in a manner which is sensitive to a country’s social and cultural context.
“Tourism, which is now the world’s largest industry, has the promise of becoming the world’s first peace industry; an industry which recognizes, promotes and supports the belief that every traveler is potentially an “Ambassador for Peace.”
Earlier, Initiator and founder of Ijaw Initiative, Ms. Kuro Fapohunda had briefed the Senior Special Assistant (SSA) to the Governor on Tourism of the purpose of the visit, saying that the group successfully organised the maiden edition of the Ijaw Nation Day Festival and Ijaw Music Carnival all in Lagos as part of efforts to preserve the Ijaw culture outside Bayelsa State.
Ms. Fapohunda, who appreciated Dr. Piriye Kiyaramo, for his pioneering support for the Ijaw Nation Day Festival, also made a passionate appeal to the Bayelsa government to support next year’s edition of annual socio-cultural event taking place in Lagos.
She was accompanied on the visit by Mr. Izibeye Robert of the Media and Publicity Department of Ijaw Initiative.
