Chief Executive Officer, August Eye Ltd., Dr Okhidievbie Roy, has appealed to the Federal Government to consistently expose the police to trainings that will aid their operations.
Roy made the appeal on Thursday at he Lagos Tourism Roundtable organised by the Institute of Tourism Professionals of Nigeria, with theme: “Lagos Tourism:Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow”.
The August Eye Ltd. boss, a security and human resource outsourcing firm, said that training the police would go a long way in improving tourism operations in Nigeria.
According to him, the trainings would involve empowering the police technologically to function optimally.
”Every police officer must be knowledgeable in the operation of drones and other security gadgets.
“Training the police are exposed to does not meet with the current day security dynamics, there is need for constant upgrading,” he said.
Roy further said that in upscaling security for the benefit of the tourism industry, practitioners should engage security experts.
He added that the country’s security outfits should be properly funded to achieve the best results.
Chief Wanle Akinboboye, Chief Executive Officer, La Campaign Tropicana, said that tourism security should be a soft security with covens.
Akinboboye advised practitioners to get CCTV cameras linked from their destinations to the police, rather than wait on government to do that.
According to him, Lagos State has all the potential to perform maximally in the tourism space but security should be handled.
“The police response time must be worked on in Nigeria. In New York, the response time is six minutes, in South Africa, it is 15 minutes and in London, it is four minutes.
“Nigeria needs to train security tour operators and guides as well as create police arm, specifically for tourism operations,” he said. (NAN)