Statistics are useful for economic planning, with statistics, government can determine how infrastructures and social amenities are distributed across the states and regions. Closely associated with this is the use of statistics for government to plan towards employment generation and what incentives to put in place for the private sector to thrive. Activities of the private sector are segmented by government, having its ministries and agencies in charge to coordinate them. We have economic indexes being used to measure growth and performances in critical sectors and industries of the economy.
One then wonders why in Nigeria, there is close to nothing in terms of available statistics to measure the performance and growth of the events industry. The pertinent questions to ask then are; Is events recognized as an industry? Are there statistics available to guide government in its economic planning? What are the contributions of events to Nigeria’s GDP? What statistics are available on the activities of MSMEs that operate within the industry? Are events driving tourism and growing local businesses in Nigeria like other countries?
Unless government takes a look at this critical industry and provide the necessary policies, infrastructures and incentives to make it grow, practitioners and stakeholders might not develop the requisite skills and capacity that will make them compete globally. For instance, the major cosmopolitan cities in Nigeria; Lagos, Port Harcourt and the Federal Capital Territory (Abuja) play host to thousands
of event organizers and several events annually, yet their governments might not have statistics on the number of event organizers in the cities, how many events take place annually and what employment these events generate and what is the value (in naira) of these events?; in spite of all the event centres that spring up at every corner. This issue requires consideration for a government that wants to grow capacity for its local Micro, Small and Medium businesses (MSMEs).