Common-visa may boost trade, tourism among ECOWAS states

To encourage trade and tourism among member-states of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), some experts have appealed for the regional body to seriously look into providing common-visa from 2017.
The experts made the appeal while speaking to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos. ECOWAS, they said, will need to provide the legal framework for effective implementation which should commence this year.
Apart from easing movement of people, goods and services, a common-visa also has the potential to attract millions of international tourists into West Africa and would boost the region’s foreign exchange earnings.
“Some tourists from Asia, Europe and North Africa have been finding it difficult to obtain visas of some of the West African countries from foreign embassies and high commissions. They complained that the requirements, protocols and policies to obtain visas were tough and stringent,” said Nneka Moses, managing director, Goge Africa.
By providing a common-visa, Moses noted that the foreign tourists would be encouraged to come as they would have easy access among member states.
A similar appeal was made by the Nigerian senate to ECOWAS in 2015. The senate through is deputy senate president had urged the body to take urgent steps towards entrenching the common currency and visa regime in the sub region.
Moses believes that only a friendly visa processing system will attract millions of tourists into the countries which make up the ECOWAS group and eventually boost revenue base.
“We are losing billions of foreign currencies due to our stringent requirements that prospective foreign tourists that wanted to obtain our visas in the sub-region were finding tough to meet,” Moses said.
Ini Akpabio, group managing director, NANET Hotel and Suites agreed that millions of tourism potentials abound in the West Africa region that could prove attraction for international tourists.
“The African continent is blessed with a lot of tourism potential that it can showcase to the world,” He said.

 

FRANK ELEANYA with agency report