Ikechi Uko, is the CEO, Akwaaba Africa Travel Market, the foremost travel show in West Africa, he bears his mind on what the incoming government should do to make travel/tourism industry count in the Nigerian economy.
No doubt, the Nigerian tourism lags far behind Egypt, South Africa and Kenya, the three leading lights in the industry on the African continent, and sadly also behind Ghana and The Gambia, the two foremost destinations in West Africa.
The sustained unimpressive ranking on African tourism also results in the industry contributing meagerly 1.5 percent to Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) at a time the country needed to take the diversification of its economy seriously.
Well, this cannot continue if Nigeria hopes to truly be the biggest economy in Africa, and also now that a new government is about taking over.
Some tourism stakeholder are already speaking their mind, and advising the incoming government on how to truly make tourism count in Nigeria, especially in becoming sustainable alternative to oil and gas revenue.
Foremost of the Nigerian tourism and travel stakeholders, who is really displeased with the poor performance of the sector is Ikechi Uko, CEO, Akwaaba African Travel Market.
But he believes that the sector can count if the new government gives tourism development a priority attention, make the so called ‘friendly business environment’ a reality than mere political promise, review the laws and policies that will enable private sector to truly drive tourism development in the country as obtainable in developed economies, among others.
Going specific, Uko noted a revise and update of the recommendations of the Tourism Masterplan is necessary because the clusters and hubs in the master plan are faulty and ineffective. Also, the implementation of the relevant and acceptable sections of the Tourism Masterplan, development of world-class tourism and products and facilities through more clusters, and developing a linkage between the promotion of Tourism and cultural events especially festivals are necessary for tourism to count in the coming administration.
Besides that Uko noted that there is need to promote the development and conservation of museums and monuments as tourism products, and develop safari products through the concession of parts of the national parks for private development.
Instead stand-alone projects, Uko suggested that the incoming government should consider the development of clusters of resorts along Nigerian beaches. The total cost of Tinapa, according to him, is more than the cost of building the top six resorts in The Gambia.
For tourism to count in the Nigerian economy, human capacity development should be taking seriously, especially training of tourism manpower to be given priority attention, while the incoming government should initiate and support funding for tourism development by creating Tourism Development Fund (TDF) for small scale empowerment.
But one good initiative that will give regional integration and development of tourism across West African borders is the support the development of common regional entry visa for West Africa and the relaxing of visa rules. “West Africa must start a Schengen style visa to enable Nigeria utilise its airport and aviation advantage to draw visitors going to other West Africa countries. Tourist visas or transit visas can be issued at the airport eliminating the biggest impediment to tourism. Transit visa or tourist visa be immediately introduced to cater for the demand of air services in West Africa by non indigenes visiting countries without viable airline connection automatically making Lagos the regional hub”, Uko said.
Beyond that, Uko suggested that Nigerian tourism would thrive if the country creates a leading Flag Carrier to solve the problem of a National carrier. “For airports that can carry the expected traffic we need five international airports at Lagos, Enugu, Abuja, PH and Kano with regional hubs feeding the major hub in Lagos. All border airports should be designated as international airports. Nigeria should lead in the implementation of Yamoussoukro Declaration (YD) and initiate continent wide open skies negotiation with Europe and USA. There should be improved facilitation at the airports removing most of the agencies at the airport to make our airports tourism friendly”, he said.
“There should be five star hotels at each international airport. The government should build and own the airports and runways (airside) but can concession the terminals [landside] to the private sector. Hajj operations should be properly managed by tour operators to enhance their capacity”, he concluded.
