40,000 Tourists Visit Olumirin Waterfalls —Daniyan

NO fewer than 40,000 tourists have visited Olumirin Waterfalls at Erin Ijesa, Oriade Local Government Area of Osun State in the last one year, the chairman of the state Tourism Board, Mr Abimbola Daniyan, has said.

Making this disclosure at a press conference in Osogbo, he maintained that the increase in the number of local and international tourists to the waterfalls was a fallout of innovative marketing and promotion of tourist attraction centres by the board.

Daniyan, who described tourism as a critical sector with greater potentials of generating revenues for the nation expressed the commitment of the incumbent administration in Osun to explore the benefits of various tourist sites for the economic growth of the state.

According to him, “we would continue to give priority attention to the tourism sector, which is a money spinner to grow the economy of our state. In the last one year, efforts have been made to implement the Osun Tourism Master Plan (OTMP) and the main objective of the OTMP is the realisation of the tourism potentials of Osun by converting the natural heritage for business growth and wealth creation.

While contending that frantic efforts had been made during the period under review to approach genuine investors in collaborating with the tourism board to develop some of the sites, most especially Olumirin waterfalls in Erin-Ijesa and Ayikunugba waterfalls in Oke-Ila to international standard, Daniyan noted that the state was already getting positive responses from local and international investors.

“We understand that tourism development is capital intensive in nature and no government can handle it alone and we are already getting positive responses from local and international investors”, he asserted.

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