PH Mundial – Port Harcourt Online Newspaper News Across The Region
Related Articles
By Amos Odeh, Yenagoa
The commissioner for Culture and Tourism in Bayelsa State, Dr. Iti Orugbani, has said that the importance of the media in the development of tourism cannot be overstated.
The commissioner stated this on Thursday when members of the Bayelsa Independent Publishers Association (BIPA) paid him a courtesy call in his office at the state secretariat in Yenagoa, the state capital.
According to Orugbani, the media, especially the local publishers, have been at the vanguard of promoting culture and tourism in the state, using their different newspaper outfits.
The commissioner, who was flanked by the permanent secretary, directors and other management staff, pledged the ministry’s continuous partnership with the newspaper publishers in the state, adding that he would support members of BIPA in any way possible to ensure they meet up modern day publishing technology.
Earlier, the chairman of the Bayelsa Independent Publishers Association, Mr. Francis Dufugha, who is also the Publisher/Editor-in-Chief of the Niger Delta Herald Newspaper, recalled that BIPA was formed in the year 200 to create an enabling ground for members to ply their trade.
He noted that BIPA had been in developmental partnership with the state government with members using their various newspapers to propagate government’s policies and programmes.
Noting the importance of the tourism subsector, the BIPA chairman said if properly harnessed, it would boost the revenue profile of the state, promising that the publishers would use their different outfits to highlight the tourism potential and cultural heritage of the state to the world.
The chairman also used the medium to inform the commissioner of BIPA’s 20th anniversary celebration which will come up later in the year.
Also, publisher of the Environment Watch Newspaper, Dcn. Braeyi Ekiye, averred that there were many untapped tourism development potentials in the state such as the proposed Age Deep Seaport, the Okpoama Beach, Oloibiri Museum among others, noting that if harnessed, Bayelsa would become Nigeria’s foremost international tourists destination and home of hospitality.
