By Renn Offor
Special Correspondent
Tourism in Nigeria generated N1.56 billion in 2014, compared with N86 billion in 2012.
That is over 5,000 per cent decline.
Yet the Nigerian Tourism Development Corporation (NTDC) was absent at the recent World Travel Market (WTM) London.
The NTDC was also absent at West African travel exposition, the Akwaaba African Travel Market (AfTM) exhibition, held at Eko Hotel & Suits, Victoria Island, Lagos from November 22 to 24.
AfTM has the potential to reposition Nigeria’s tourism from mediocrity.
It is the only travel market approved for West Africa by the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO), and it partners with the African Travel Association (ATA).
Efforts by NTDC
NTDC officials, led by Director General (DG) Sally Mbanefo, have been visiting tourism sites in Nigeria, setting up information centres at airports, entering partnerships with hotels online booking portals, and dealing with the frustration of striking workers.
Mbanefo said these efforts are meant to stimulate and drive domestic tourism.
Tourism involves people travelling within a country or from one country to another for leisure or business. Tourists inject fresh money into the local economy which reflects on Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
But domestic tourism does not grow the economy the way foreign arrivals do.
WTM generates £2.5b business deals
In 2014, the WTM London, with the support of the British government, attracted a record 51,500 participants from global travel and tourism senior executives who profiled the hottest travel destinations.
Business deals worth more than £2.5 billion were triggered by the event, while £2.44 million has been pumped into the economy through money spent on hotels, restaurants, flights, and other discretionary spend by visitors to the British capital city alone.
Travel exhibition is therefore one of the best channels to showcase a country’s tourism assets to the world.
It enables countries and organisations to meet the public with buyers and sellers of tourism products like hotels, tour operators, airlines, tourism boards and associations, producers of travel and hospitality wares.
They all meet under one roof, interacting, marketing, and closing deals.
All these activities transpire before the watchful eyes of the press from all over the world.
AfTM
The UNTWO allotted AfTM the sole right of the West African version of travel exhibition, which holds yearly in Lagos. Nigeria is seen to have the most formidable potential for a tourism hub in West Africa.
Holding the event in Lagos has over the years afforded Nigeria the opportunity to tap into the benefits of tourism, which contributed N86 billion to its GDP in 2012.
Former NTDC DG, Olugbenga Runsewe, used the Akwaaba platform to have a direct influence on the entire tourism business in Nigeria.
He prompted seminars, meetings, and conferences sandwiched between the three-day event, and brought to the expo some of the world’s best brains in tourism and hospitality to inform and drive productivity in the sector.
Trying to find answers to the problems confronting the current NTDC administration, TheNiche spoke with some its top management staff.
Though they preferred anonymity, their responses were similar. “There is no money”. “The NTDC does not have money”.
To attend Akwaaba, the NTDC needs less than N2 million, which covers transportation and hotel accommodation for attending staff.
The non participation of the NTDC in the travel exhibition and its emphasis on domestic tourism show that it does not understand tourism management.
It does not understand that it needs worthy platforms to find relevance, especially before the stakeholders and buyers and sellers of tourism products.
Tourism marketed through channels
Tourism is marketed through channels and not by attending Osun Osogbo festival, attending the setting up of private museum in Port Harcourt, or attending of New Yam festival in Igbo-Ukwu.
Mbanefo reiterated at the 2015 World Tourism Day in Enugu that “Nigeria has a better advantage over so many other countries to benefit from tourism. We have the advantage of population.
“Tourism contributes 10 per cent to the global GDP but as at now, Nigeria is not fully benefiting from tourism like other countries.
“For instance, 4,333,000 tourists visited Nigeria in 2013, which contributed about 4 per cent to our GDP, while tourism contributes 17.7 per cent to the GDP of The Gambia; 13 per cent to Egypt; 12 per cent to Kenya; 11.9 per cent to Mexico; 9 per cent to South Africa, and 6 per cent to Cuba.
“We need to know that Nigeria should focus more on tourism as the best alternative to oil, with domestic tourism as the catalyst.
“I need to emphasise that Nigeria has the best of the ingredient of tourism. We have fascinating tourist sites, enviable cultural festivals; and good weather, good and hospitable people.
“Have you ever wondered why most diplomats, after serving their terms choose to stay back in Nigeria? It is because of the warmth and friendliness of our people, environment and potentials.”
She disclosed that the NTDC received N2 billion federal allocation between 2013 and 2014.
“I know that it is essential for tourism to keep abreast with international market flows, information, trend, branding, and networking by attending and promoting Nigeria tourism potentialities in all these markets and shows.
“But I realise that we will be doing this country an irreparable damage if we failed to nurture, fertilise, grow, groom, and enhance domestic tourism first before calling outsiders to come or embark on overseas marketing and promoting what is not on the ground.
“This is what I have been doing which was not done before.
“My own take about foreign trips or shows is also that we just don’t attend any show for its sake, rather we should attend a show with a target as we used to do in the banking industry.
“WTM London, yes; ITB Berlin, yes; ATM Dubai, yes; FITUR Spain, yes. But the question is, apart from showing our face, what do we realise after all the noise, after all the money and after all the time spent?
“I will not attend any show where Nigeria will not have substantial benefit. The question is, what has been Nigeria’s gain since we have been attending past shows and exhibitions? It cannot be business as usual.”
Downward spiral
But what has the NTDC done to harness these benefits Mbanefo talks about?
The 2013 figure Mbanefo quoted was from the 2012 report of the NTDC when the DG was Runsewe.
She avoided tourist figures for 2013 and 2014 under her tenure.
In 2013, Nigeria recorded only 600,000 tourists, according World Bank tourist arrivals figures for countries. In 2014, the figure was lower.
In 2014, tourism scontributed only N1.56 million or 1.7 per cent to Nigeria’s GDP, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
Mbanefo is probably unwilling to listen to technocrats and top management and to find a way out of the murky waters she has plunged the tourism industry.
The demands of the striking workers of the NTDC seem to prove this point.
Nigerians would have learnt another lesson in leadership that what guarantees success is not good credentials but passion properly channelled with the right skill and knowledge.
Tourism administration in Nigeria should be handled by people with the right aptitude and knowledge.
The government keeps quiet about the non-performance in the NTDC. Keeping quiet and accepting the negative image the NTDC gives Nigeria all over the world.
This silence agrees with the assertion of a marketing expert.
“Our country, Nigeria, seems quite comfortable with her less than sluggish, empty-headed and mediocre approach to her tourism matters, as they pursue the insignificant while remaining absent from the major,” said Edge Merchandise Managing Director, Christian Chukwuemeka.
Bright lights
Nonetheless, the African travel market powers on.
Last year, against the fear of Ebola which caused many European and African countries to cancel business transactions in Nigeria, the organisers of AfTM demonstrated grit, and faith in African tourism, especially West Africa, to stage one of its best exhibitions.
About three months to this year’s event, for the first time, the organisers announced that all stands have been fully booked and stopped registration of exhibitors.
Still, the NTDC was missing.
AfTM has attracted heads of state, top government functionaries, professionals and artistes from Nigeria, The Gambia, Ghana, South Africa, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, Ethiopia, Egypt, the United States, and Europe.
Ghana after Nigeria
African countries are making efforts to stimulate and sustain tourism growth.
But there are no tourism conferences or such other events organised by or supported by the Nigerian government.
So, Ghana and other countries are looking for means to rise above Nigeria.
Ghanaian Tourism Minister, Elizabeth Ofosu-Agyare, met the organiser of Akwaaba at ITB Berlin in March this year and expressed the Ghanaian government’s support for him, which led to the first ever travel exhibition, Accra Weizo, in July.
Ghana wants to be the West African tourism hub. It has opened its skies to attract an influx of air passengers and airline traffic. It invited Nigeria’s Calabar Carnival artistes to perform at Accra Weizo.
The language of Ghana is clear: It wants to knock off and surpass Nigeria from the West African tourism equation.
In fact, Ofosu-Agyare declared at Accra Weizo that Ghana will soon launch her own carnival similar to Carnival Calabar.
At WTM London, Kenyans and other East Africans said they have done ground work to push their tourism marketing drive into West Africa, targeting Nigeria and Ghana.
Even violence prone countries like Iran and Afghanistan which do not have a tenth of Nigeria’s tourism infrastructure record higher tourism receipts.
Nigeria should borrow a leaf from other countries committed to tourism growth. The government should throw its weight behind AfTM, just like we saw at Indaba in South Africa, the East Africa tourism summit, and Accra Weizo.
AfTM remains the only platform which keeps alive Nigeria’s hope of a flourishing future in tourism packaging, awareness, and marketing to the world.