Olugbenga Adebayo is the president and chief executive officer of Gadeshire Travels and Tours Limited, whose tour firm played host to a five-man group of tourists and investors from Malaysia and Indonesia last week. In this interview, he speaks to Obinna Emelike on the challenges he encountered in executing the package, need for seamless visa procurement process, improved immigration at the airports and incentives to lure more tourists to visit Nigeria, while boosting the business of tour operators across Nigeria and the visiting Asian countries.
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What were some of the challenges you encountered in putting this tour package together?
The challenges are not unusual especially when you are putting together a tour for international tourists. Visa processing, visa fees and logistics were all part of the challenges. The experience of our guests in getting visas was harrowing, therefore we still need to visit the visa fees regime; it is not encouraging at all.
One of the issues is reciprocity in visa fees and we need to revisit this. If the US is charging Nigeria $150 (N69, 000) especially for visitor’s visa, then Nigeria is expected to charge the same fees to ensure uniformity in visa fees. I am sure if you go to the Malaysia Embassy in Nigeria the visa fee is not more than N20, 000. So, if a Malaysian is coming to Nigeria and he is spending almost N200,000 for visa procurement, then there is no uniformity at all or reciprocity in that aspect.
How can this be resolved?
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs needs to look into this because if we as businesses and tour operators are putting our resources into marketing and promoting Nigeria and then our government is not complementing these efforts, then it is not good enough and beneficial to us as you know that the tourism sector is private driven.
In my organization, there is a department that is called Visiting-Nigeria, which carries out ground handling services for visitors for business, tours, trade missions, MICE and others. It is also the department in our organisation with the core responsibility of marketing Nigeria as a preferred destination to visitors all around the globe. We put a lot of resources into marketing some of Nigeria’s destinations that we know are viable.
We also send our personnel to trade fairs, travel fairs, trade missions, conferences, studies and training abroad to market and promote Nigeria’s destination. When we put in all these efforts and we do not see the government playing its part, it is very frustrating, discouraging and disappointing.
When it comes to visa issues, it is the prerogative of the government, we do not have the power or control over it. But that is one of the ways that the government can support our businesses if it is properly done. We are not asking the government not to carry out due diligence, but it should be done in such a way as not to discourage the visitors or make it difficult for them to obtain visa or entry permit into Nigeria. If you make it that difficult, it will affect our businesses, and it will also have adverse effects on foreign direct investment (FDI), foreign exchange earnings, job creation and sustainability of all tourism job chains and also on our national brands.
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How can the government improve visa processing?
We do not have to do something that will put off visitors from coming to Nigeria. For instance, for this tour, it took us over three months to get to this point. The coordinator had to visit the Nigerian Embassy in Malaysia several times before he could get the visa for the group members.
We have been having discussions over the years with our travel company partner in Malaysia on collaboration in marketing Nigeria as a preferred destination to Malaysians, Indonesians and Singaporeans and on how this should be done. Now imagine that the first set of tourists visiting Nigeria from Malaysia and Indonesia have to face this process of forth and back for an entry visa.
The visa process has to be conducted in a seamless manner to make it easier for the visitors and us, especially people who are coming for tourism, investment and business purposes. We are looking forward to receiving over 200 visitors from Malaysia and Indonesia in 2023 who are coming on trade missions, tourism, and to participate in some of our local festivals.
If procuring visas for five Asians is difficult, how easy would it be for the 200 intended tourists in 2023?
These are some of the issues our travel partners in Malaysia raised during their visit, if they have to come for these trade missions, tourism and to participate in some of our festivals next year.
What are the benefits of the visit by the Asians to the country?
There are quite a lot. First, the visitors now have different perceptions about Nigeria away from what they have been reading over the internet or heard from others. The visitors came with foreign currency, spent their money in Nigeria and we are complaining of scare foreign exchange and the high exchange rate but these people are coming with foreign currency, this would boost our economy and foreign currency earning level.
They lodged in a hotel and the government earns revenue from these hotels in form of taxes, levies and service charges as well as taxes from other vendors or service providers as a result of this visit.
They interacted with the local people and bought things from them, we visited many places where we had to pay gate fees. Some of the people working in these establishments are able to keep their jobs as a result of the patronage. So, these are the reasons we want government policies to be encouraging for the operators and business owners and for the sector sustainability.
It is really discouraging at times when we have to deal with these issues that we do not personally have control over and that is why when they tell us that we should sell or market Nigeria as a destination. We find it difficult because when you are putting in efforts at marketing Nigeria, then see bottlenecks in implementation, it discourages.
It is easier for my organisation to market foreign destinations than Nigeria and the reasons for this are obvious.
I believe that the tourism sector of our economy needs appropriate attention as it has more capacity to boost and sustain our challenging economy.
