DEVELOPING A MULTIMEDIA GIS DATABASE FOR TOURISM INDUSTRY IN 
NIGERIA 
O. O. Ayeni, D. N. Saka (Mrs.), G. Ikwuemesi 
Department of Surveying and Geoinformatics, 
Faculty of Engineering 
University of Lagos, Yaba, Lagos, Nigeria. 
ooayeni(@yahoo.com 
Th S6: Technical and Economic Aspects of Geospatial Information Services 
Keywords: Development, Multimedia, GIS, Database, Spatial Information Services, Tourism. 
ABSTRACT: 
Nigeria's determined efforts to promote Tourism Industry since 1991 were enumerated. This includes the establishment of the 
National Policy on Tourism and the National Tourism Development Corporation (NTDC) with the objective of making Nigeria the 
ultimate tourism destination in Africa. Tourism spatial and attribute data gathered were classified into three categories — Cultural, 
Ecological and Modern day tourism. A relational GIS database was created using Arc View and graphic (map), picture and sound 
data were integrated into the multimedia GIS database. The various software which made this possible were; Microsoft Excel, 
Arcview, ArcGIS, AutoCAD release 14, CAD Overlay, Media Studio Pro 5, Video Edition and ULEAD Video Studio with a 
firewire adapter. The various outputs from the database include aspatial queries, analogue and electronic Tourism Atlas, 
Encyclopedia, a Digital library of Tourism. 
l. INTRODUCTION 
1.1 Development of Tourism 
The Nigerian Government in her quest to diversify her 
mono-cultural economy, which is heavily dependent on 
petroleum export, has decided to take some measures to 
promote travel and tourism. The measures include the 
establishment of the National Tourism Policy (NTP) in 
1990, the birth of the Nigerian Tourism Development 
Corporation (NTDC) in 1992, the founding of the National 
Institute for Hospitality and Tourism (NIHOTOUR), in 
Baganda, Kano, and the National travel Bureau (NTB), a 
tour operating company of NTDC, (NTDC (2001)) the 
adoption of a Tourism master plan and National Tourism 
Council with the President as chairman. The aims of these 
measures can be summarized as follows: 
To make Nigeria the ultimate Tourism destination in 
Africa and; 
To make Tourism one of the greatest foreign exchange 
earners in an oil dependent economy. 
2. OBJECTIVE 
With a population of about 120million people made of about 
300 ethnic groups, a vast land of about Imillion sqkm, a 
beautiful coastland of about 835km, a rich diversity of cultural 
and ecological resources, Nigeria appears destined to be indeed 
the "Giant" of Africa as far as tourism is concerned. The 
objective of this research is to develop a multimedia GIS 
database for Tourism industry as a perceived technical solution 
to the problem of promoting both domestic and international 
tourism in Nigeria. Such a database constitutes the basis for 
promoting efficient and productive multimedia spatial 
information services by private and government tourism agents 
all over the country. The greatest challenges in developing a 
multimedia GIS is to integrate different types of data such as 
text data, graphical data (maps, graphs), pictures data (still and 
moving Pictures) and sound data (voice and music) thus 
630 
creating in some cases, a multiple representation for the same 
data. 
3. METHODOLOGY 
3.1 Classification of Tourism Data 
In this research, tourism data were gathered in under the 
following categories, which constitute layers and sub layers in 
the designed GIS database: 
> Traditional Cultural Tourism: Museum, art 
galleries, cultural, religious and national festivals, 
historical monuments, natural features such as sites 
and buildings, arts and crafts. 
7 Ecological Tourism: Geological / geophysical / 
geomorphological features, (mountains, waters, falls, 
springs, beaches, national parks, games/forest 
reserves, botanical / zoological gardens etc. 
> Notable modern Features and Facilities: 
Hydroelectric power, dams, oil rigs, sporting facilities 
and other notable engineering structures. Travel and 
Accommodation Facilities, Tourism Centers and 
agents, and other related data to tourism (see fig 1). 
The data obtained under the three classes were related to their 
geographical locations in their states and local government 
areas of Nigeria. Table 1a, b, c contains a sample data from the 
Database showing tourism attraction from some states, their 
local governments, the type and class of Tourism attraction, 
(Ayeni et. al (2001 )). 
3.2 Source of Data, Hardware and Software 
Sources of data include existing maps, plan and charts, 
textbooks, Internet websites, newspapers, magazines. 
brochures, travel guides and questionnaire. Survey and GPS 
Survey was used (o update existing maps and digital camera 
and digital video camera to capture some data at tourism sites. 
Some analogue graphics and maps were converted into digital 
format using A0 Digitizer with AutoCAD Release 14 software. 
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