To mark this year’s World Tourism Day on September 27 and Nigeria’s 54th Independence on October 1, @TravelNextDoor has announced commemorative excursions to the Lekki-Ajah axis of Lagos, and Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital.
The trip to Lekki will hold on Saturday, September 27, and will include stops at Freedom Park, Nike Art Gallery, Lekki Conservation Centre, Lekki Craft Market, Lagos National Museum, Lekki Leisure Lake and a private jetty.
For the Abeokuta leg scheduled for October 1, the excursion will touch such local attractions as the Alake’s Palace, the first church in Nigeria (St. Peters Anglican Cathedral, built 1844), the Centenary Hall, Olumo Rock Tourist Centre, Kemta (Tie-and-Die fabric) Market, Aroko Green Museum, and the Anikulapo-Kuti Family House.
@TravelNextDoor, a social media-driven initiative, which primary aim is to promote Nigeria’s tourism assets to Nigerians, has organised similar educational and recreational excursions since 2010, with impressive turn-out of tourists. Its most recent excursions were to Badagry, the serene and renowned slave route on the western fringe of Lagos.
“With our regular excursions, we have since realised that Nigerians, young and old, will gladly sign up for tours within Nigeria, if and when they know about it,” said @TravelNextDoor founder and coordinator, Pelu Awofeso.
“Ours have been well received, and it is the reason we are still at it. More than anything else, we see this as a wake-up call to the many tour operators out there to design tour packages to our local attractions, which are as fascinating as whatever is obtainable elsewhere on the continent.”
According to the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO), the theme for this year’s World Tourism Day is ‘Tourism and Community Development’, which places premium on the fact that tourism is well served when countries make efforts to develop community-based tourist attractions, and by so doing “empower people and provide them with skills to achieve change in their local communities”.
Awofeso, an award-winning travel journalist also said: “It is a clear call to action for all countries serious about developing their tourism industries and particularly for Nigeria, which has so far not given community development the attention it deserves.”
