We must rethink collaboration to sustain business trend in tourism — Nkereuwem Onung

Nkereuwem Onung, president, Federation of Tourism Association of Nigeria (FTAN), has identified collaboration as a key factor that will not only sustain business trends in 2023, but also strengthen the survival bond among stakeholders in tourism.

Onung, who spoke with journalists at the Margaret Ekpo International Airport, Calabar, recently, said after recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic things become more dynamic and it takes a dynamic business-minded person or group to work out viable ways to meet the new challenges that emerged.

“To scale up with marketing demands and trends of the industry, business-to-business (B2B) collaboration is a factor that tourism and travel business owners must embrace for sustainable business engagement,” Onung said.

He made it clear that Nigeria’s tourism industry is vulnerable to the unstable economic trend and if anyone in the tourism value chain wants to continue to sustain a business trend to meet customers’ demand, one must be super-creative through genuine collaboration.

The tourism value chain is enormous and one person cannot handle it all and since everything is interconnected, we have to look at our different areas of comparative advantage while other areas where we are weak or don’t have a stronghold through collaboration we can jointly pull a win-win business.

“FTAN is streamlining its agenda this New Year with a focus on closing the gap among the member associations under the federation as well as stakeholders in general to see that we do more things together to benefit everyone than standing alone.

“We are also making our TRAIC Mandate more visible, while consolidating on the successes of last year. Together we can achieve more than promoting individualism in a sector that flies on a connecting value chain business.

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“This year, we are going to activate more mutual programmes that promote togetherness in the spirit of public and private sector collaboration (PPP) because there is no way the government can champion a tourism programme without the drivers of the industry playing an active role and vice versa.

“We are looking at re-aligning every possibility in the name of healthy lobbying and collaboration to stimulate and initiate events that open more opportunities and business windows for the country and the people.

“Nigeria is the only country we have, we must partner to see that we take our tourism products to the global stage through innovative packaging and brand positioning. Our story to the world must change and that change begins with the way we do things. This year, we must rethink tourism positively and work the talk in all we do,” Onung added.