📖 ABSTRACT/OVERVIEW
This study critically examines the political economy of tourism policy formation in Nigeria from 2000 to 2024, analysing the structural, political, and economic forces that shape tourism policy outcomes at both federal and state levels. Tourism policy in Nigeria has historically been characterised by discontinuities, resource misallocations, and weak implementation, yet the underlying political economy dynamics driving these outcomes remain theoretically underexplored. A critical realist epistemological stance is adopted with a multi-method design combining content analysis of 24 years of tourism policy documents and budget appropriation records, 35 semi-structured elite interviews with current and former policymakers, tourism industry association leaders, and international tourism advisors, and two state-level case studies contrasting policy dynamics in Cross River State and Kano State. Policy network analysis is applied to map the influence structures governing tourism policy decisions. Findings reveal that tourism policy agendas in Nigeria are predominantly driven by political cycles, executive preference, and patronage networks rather than evidence-based planning or stakeholder consensus processes. Budget allocations to tourism ministries are shown to be systematically lower than policy rhetoric suggests, averaging 0.6 percent of total federal allocations across the study period. State-level policy entrepreneurship by governors with personal interest in tourism development emerges as the most significant driver of positive policy outcomes, illustrated by the Cross River State case. The study contributes a political economy model of Nigerian tourism policymaking and generates actionable recommendations for institutionalising evidence-based tourism planning. Keywords: tourism policy, political economy, Nigeria, governance, policy networks
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