Travel and tourism related businesses in Nigeria with huge outbound clientele to South Africa are beginning to witness a decline just some hours after the Nigerian government issued travel advisory on South Africa.
Most of the businesses, especially tour operators and travel agencies are seeing booking cancellations of almost 30 percent in matter of hours and are expecting the decline to reach 50 percent in a months’ time if the impasse continues.
The travel advisory signed by Ferdinand Nwonye, spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on September 4, 2019, was in response to the face-off between the Nigerian and South African governments over the recent xenophobic attacks that have resulted in an unprecedented loss of lives and properties of other Africans, especially Nigerians in some parts of South Africa since September 2, 2019.
Following the travel advisory, tour operators and travel agencies are receiving growing cancellation orders from clients on planed trips to South Africa, while clients already in South Africa are cutting short their trips to return for safety, as well, parents are concerned about the safety of their children across universities in South Africa and seeking their return.
According to some travel agencies and tour operators, the worst declines are from some Nigerian corporate organisations who are cancelling seminars, training workshops and retreats involving huge number of staff members, enormous logistics and funds, which would be difficult to refund as financial commitments have been made long ago to facilitators and commissions taken.
“Already, the short duration of visa is a big issue for selling South Africa. Now, with the travel advisory, most corporate organisations that want to be seen as responsible are cancelling their engagements and looking elsewhere. For those of us who depend on these corporates that form over 70 percent of our outbound business to South Africa, it is a total decline and we are shutting down if the impasse continues,” Jane Onah, a travel agent said.
The situation is getting worse by the recent agreement by most tour operators in Nigeria in response to the xenophobia attacks to stop selling South Africa as tourism destination to their Nigerian clients until further notice.
According to Hajia Bilkisu Abdul, national president, Nigeria Association Of Tour Operators (NATOP) and founder/CEO, BBOOG Travels and Tours, the tour operators cannot take clients to unsafe destinations.
“As for the tour operators we have agreed to stop selling South Africa for now till further notice,” the NATOP president said while advising Nigerians to stop going to South Africa on their own for now.
Recalling her sad experience, Olanma Ojukwu, CEO, GOTA, a Cotonou-based travel agency, said since the escalation of the xenophobia attacks, a South African company she is partnering for an exchange programme has put a stop to payment and further discussions on the trip. “I am sure that is the case with lots of other tour operators out there,”she said.
Also speaking on the decline, Efetobo Awhana, managing director, Avantgarde Tours Limited, noted that the travel and tour business, which is not booming again, is going to be hit hard by the shutdown between the two countries, especially businesses that do more packages to South Africa.
Beyond tour operators and travel agencies, Awhana said that visa racketeers are also going to suffer as the South Africa Embassy is shut, hence no visa processing for intending travellers.
Sadly, according to him, some tour operators and travel agencies are involved in the visa racketeering business because of the quick money it offers.
“While you work hard to sell tours and tickets, some unscrupulous people make more money getting visas for would-be travellers, but in collaboration with the visa officers. So, those bunch of people and their collaborators at the embassies are losing out now,” Awhana said.
As well, VFS Global, an outsourcing and technology services specialist for governments and diplomatic missions worldwide, which collects and dispatches travel documents to the South African embassy and consulates in Nigeria will see no applicants at its South African visa centres because of the shutdown of the embassy in Nigeria.
With the development, VFS, which collects over N20, 000 from the total amount of N32, 000 Nigerian applicants pay for the processing of the South African visa, will be losing money until normalcy returns.
In the meantime, the NATOP president thinks that most tour operators would be selling some destinations such as Dubai, Qatar, Morocco, Kenyan, Mauritius and Rwanda to their Nigerian clients instead of South Africa.
“Some of these destinations like Dubai are cheaper, the visa is hassle-free, and there are many options as well,” she said.
But Onah thinks that The Gambia and Ghana are already positioning to woo Nigerian visitors as more Nigerians visitors are willing to travel to see other West African countries.
“With about 10 cancellations in a day, I am encouraging my clients to visit Ghana or Gambia instead of South Africa and they are beginning to do so. I am making more contacts across the two countries for partnerships in selling the destinations and also to stay in business,” she said.
All our neighbouring West African countries are beginning to see us as tourism source market like East African, South Africa, Dubai among other destinations have been doing. The Gambia is fully back now, Ghana has seen lots of infrastructural development in recent time all geared towards attracting more visitors including Nigerians, which everybody knows as big spenders,” she said.
On where to go instead of South Africa, Ojukwu said, “Other African destinations like Benin Republic are becoming peaceful destinations to visit in Africa. Benin Republic is just less than 30 minutes into Lagos, as well Togo and Ghana are also close.”
However, the tour operators think that the airlines would be impacted if the impasse continues as intending visitors shun South Africa and those who insist on visiting cannot get visas with the embassy still shutdown.
As well, South Africa may not meet her tourism grow targets of 15 million arrivals and R145 billion tourism revenue in 2019, while the 21 million international visitors by 2030 may not be actualised.
OBINNA EMELIKE
