Tourism is an area which has not been fully explored by the government to boost the economy of your country. Write an article suitable for publication in a ...

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A Sleeping Giant: Why We Must Wake Our Tourism Industry to Riches

By Adaeze Okonkwo, Staff Writer

From the thundering spray of our waterfalls to the golden sweep of our beaches, from ancient palaces and living festivals to game reserves teeming with wildlife, our nation carries a fortune in plain sight. Yet year after year that fortune sits idle. While countries with a fraction of our natural and cultural wealth earn billions from foreign visitors, we allow ours to gather dust. The time has come to treat tourism not as a pleasant afterthought, but as a serious engine of national prosperity.

Consider first what we already possess. Few countries can boast our combination of coastline, savannah, rainforest, historic cities and vibrant traditional festivals. Our music, our cuisine, our warm hospitality and our colourful cultural heritage are precisely the experiences that travellers cross oceans to enjoy. These are not resources we must struggle to create; they are gifts already in our hands, waiting only to be organised, protected and presented to the world.

The economic case is compelling. Tourists spend money the moment they arrive: on hotels, transport, food, guides, crafts and entertainment. That spending is fresh foreign exchange flowing into our economy, strengthening our currency and easing our dangerous over-dependence on a single export whose price we cannot control. A well-managed tourism sector spreads its earnings widely, reaching small traders, market women and rural communities that other industries rarely touch.

Just as importantly, tourism creates jobs, and it creates them quickly. Hotels need cooks, cleaners, receptionists and managers; sites need guides and security; visitors need drivers, artisans and performers. For a nation whose greatest challenge is the army of talented young people searching for work, few industries can absorb so many hands so fast. Honest employment, in turn, is one of the surest remedies for the restlessness and crime that idleness breeds.

There is a further reward that no balance sheet fully captures. When visitors experience our kindness, our creativity and our history first-hand, they return home as ambassadors, correcting the tired and unfair pictures too often painted of our country. A strong tourism industry does not merely fill our treasury; it repairs our reputation and deepens the pride we take in our own heritage.

None of this will happen by wishing. Government must act with purpose. Our tourist sites must be developed and properly maintained, linked by good roads and reliable power. Above all, the safety of visitors must be guaranteed, for no traveller will come where security is in doubt. A determined marketing campaign, at home and abroad, must tell our story loudly, while tax incentives and simpler regulations should invite private investors to build the hotels and resorts a growing industry demands. Training our young people in hospitality and tourism management would ensure the jobs created are filled by skilled and confident hands.

Tourism is, in truth, a sleeping giant. Waken it wisely and it will repay us many times over with revenue, employment, improved infrastructure and a proud new image in the eyes of the world. The treasures are already ours. What remains is the will to use them, and that will must be summoned now.

A note on how an article of this kind is marked

Examiners generally reward four separate qualities. It is worth understanding each one, because a script can be rich in ideas yet still lose marks by neglecting the others.

• Format: An article must look and sound like an article. It should carry a clear, arresting headline or title and, where appropriate, a by-line naming the writer. It should open with an engaging introduction, develop its argument in orderly paragraphs, and close with a firm conclusion. It must read as continuous, flowing prose addressed to a general newspaper readership, not as a letter, a speech or a set of notes.
• Content: The ideas must be relevant, well developed and clearly on task. Here that means genuinely addressing the need to develop tourism: what the country has to offer, the economic and employment benefits, the wider gains in image and infrastructure, and what government and others should do. Points should be explained and illustrated, not merely listed.
• Expression (organisation and style): Marks are given for logical structure, smooth links between paragraphs, varied and appropriate vocabulary, and a persuasive tone suited to a newspaper audience. Each paragraph should carry one main idea, and the writing should hold the reader's interest from the headline to the final line.
• Mechanical accuracy: Spelling, punctuation, grammar and sentence construction must be sound. Frequent errors lower the mark even when the ideas are strong, so time should always be kept for careful checking.

A top-band response, like the model above, satisfies all four: it is unmistakably an article, its ideas are relevant and fully developed, its expression is fluent and persuasive, and its language is accurate throughout.