THE IMPACT OF RAILWAY TRANSPORTATION ON TOURISM DEVELOPMENT IN NIGERIA

THE IMPACT OF RAILWAY TRANSPORTATION ON TOURISM DEVELOPMENT IN NIGERIA

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

The role of transportation in the development of tourism has been and continues to be a controversial issue, it is controversial in the sense that many schools of thought exist concerning its role vis-à-vis development. Storey (1969) and Dawson and Barwell (1993) have for instance classified the impact of transportation on regional development into positive, neutral and negative. In the positive case, transportation acts as a stimulus to further development while the neutral effect applies where transport facilities do not themselves bring about productive activities. The negative case related to situations in which it brings about increase migration, spread of disease or decline in the level of per capital income. Numerous scholars have expressed divergent views, which follow the basic structure of Storey’s classification. For example, Hunter (1965) and Wilson (1966) point out the neutral effect of transport on regional development. Filani (1995) explained the role of transportation on rural development, Salau and Baba (1984) reported the effect of transport on settlements change and development. Eliot Hurst (1974) and Stephen (1998) further states that access has no meaning without resources to be utilized. This implies that the development of transportation infrastructure should occur only where there are resources to be developed; where as in another study, Dodgson (1974) and Chou (1971) also shows that highway construction may not always lead to regional development. The negative effect of transportation on regional development is further demonstrated by Chatzionnou (1989) and Chang (1989). On the other hand the studies by Janelle (1959) Bierman and Rydzkowski (1991) as well as Sammer (1981) in their work have proved that there is a positive impact of transportation on regional development. Thus, while views may differ, the general conclusion is that the development of major transport network can develop tourism which will contribute positively to reconciling environmental protection, economic development and the fight against poverty, (Sammer, 1981; Halsall, 1992 and Pearce, 1997; Curtis and Kokotos, 2009; Brida et al., 2010; Dodds and Butler, 2010). Others went further to observe that little progress has been made by Geographers in this area, which has to do with the relationship between transport facilities recreational and tourism activity that occurs, ( Chubb, 1989; Page, 1993; Hall and Page, 1998a; Brown, 2009) This study therefore, attempts to examine the role of railway transportation in development of tourism using Nigeria as a case study. It is hypothesized that transportation is not a determinant of the development of tourism (as measured by the location of national parks) in Nigeria.

Transport plays an important part in economic growth and globalization, but most times cause air pollution and use large amounts of land. While it is heavily subsidized by governments, good planning of transport is essential to make traffic flow, and restrain urban sprawl.

Infrastructure therefore is a part of structure; material or economic base of a society or an organization. It is a basic structure that fosters the good performance of cities’, states’ or countries’ essential services. In this sense, for a country to have a good logistics infrastructure system in the different modes of transportation, constant investment from both public and private sectors are needed.

The study will pay more attention to road transportation. Since 1960, Nigeria’s road transportation infrastructure has enjoyed the largest outlay of foreign investment compared with other modes and remains the preferred option for door to door linkage. Until recently, the policy initiative on road infrastructure development, funding, maintenance and even operations has been the sole responsibility of the various tiers of government.

THE IMPACT OF RAILWAY TRANSPORTATION ON TOURISM DEVELOPMENT IN NIGERIA