Date of Publication :7th September 2016

Abstract: Tourism has been noted to be one of the important sectors of the Nigerian economy. Tourism is a highly complex activity which requires tools that aid in an effective decision-making to come to terms with the competing economic, social and environmental demands of sustainable development. Geographic Information System (GIS) is one of such tools. GIS being an information system that is capable of answering questions about where facilities and resources are located represents enormous benefits to the tourism sector of any economy. The power of GIS lies not only in the ability to visualize spatial relationships, but also beyond the space to the holistic view of the world with its many interconnected components and complex relationships. The use of GIS technology could assist Bauchi State government as well as the Nigerian government with better planning of tourism infrastructure, location and dissemination of such infrastructure, production of better quality maps showing tourists sites abound in the country because of the dynamic capability of GIS tools to incorporate changes that occur over time to its database. A GIS database for tourism in Bauchi State was created using some selected roads, tourist attractions and facilities with the aid of base maps and GPS. This paper presents the significant role that GIS can play in tourism development in Bauchi State if a complete database for tourism in the State is designed and developed.

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