Insecurity, poor infrastructure and poor communication have combined to cost Nigeria a slot among the first top 10 most visited countries in Africa, in spite of its natural potential.
This worrisome development and the continuous decrease of the contribution of travel and tourism to Nigeria’s GDP pushed specialists in tourism last weekend to call for the urgent tackling of these occurrences and improvement in aviation safety and security to boost and grow the sector which presently employs over two million people.
Speaking in Lagos, Nuah Padmore, Director of Aviation and facilitation at Liberia Civil Aviation Authority who gave the statistics of most visited countries in Africa with Egypt at number one and Uganda at 10, said it has been proven that tourism would be adversely affected by terrorism, crime and corruption. He also cited example of how USA September 11, 2011 terrorism attack caused a drop in visitors to US.
He spoke on safety and security in African tourism- threats, risks and opportunities at second memorial lecture in honour of Job Obinna Onyeukwu Onyenso, the former CEO of Pathfinders Limited.
Stating that tourism opportunities abound, Padmore said tourism grows and boosts economic activities, improves brand image of a country, it is source of foreign exchange and employment generation and it promotes cultural traditions.
Other speakers agreed that while security, including aviation safety is important in tourism, they emphasised that mitigation of occurrences and creating channels that controls communication will boost tourism.
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In his presentation, Perceval Uwechue, regional manager, Qatar Airlines underscored the importance of safety in aviation tourism explaining that safety and security are interlinked.
He also identified poor infrastructure and lack of will-power in promoting tourism and putting the necessary infrastructure that will drive the sector. “There must be the will to make this happen. Tourism is not built overnight so also safety and security”.
Uwechue said that many Nigerian states are sitting on goldmine of tourism but refused to do anything about it but instead they are focused on oil. He said Nigeria must change the narrative to boost tourism to national significance.
In the same manner, Joy Ogbebo, Aviation consultant said there is no way tourism can grow without security and safety. She however said many foreigners and Nigerians in Diapora have wrong perceptions because of the negative stories . She called for promotion of Nigerian tourism and correction of Nigeria’s image through the media.
In his presentation, Ikechi Uko a Nigerian travel business consultant and the organizer of Akwaaba African Travel Market, said tourism will grow once the right tools are applied. “The challenges of insecurity will always be there but we are not making efforts in communicating our efforts in Nigeria. We have failed in the area of communication”, he said.
He said people will travel to anywhere in the world, no matter the danger. “All what is needed is to excite the need to travel and they would pay to go there. Middle East has more violence than anywhere in the world, but they attract more tourists than other countries because they do a lot of marketing and promotion”.
While calling for improvement in aviation safety and more flights to different destinations, Uko said that without air access, it is impossible to grow tourism in Africa.
Speaking earlier, CEO of Pathfinders Nkechi Onyenso said oil of aviation is aviation security. This is because where passengers do not feel safe to travel by air; they will look for other means of transportation.
She described aviation security as a combination of measures, human and material resources put in place to safeguard civil aviation against unlawful interference. “In Pathfinders, we strive to provide excellent aviation security services covering aircraft guarding, passenger and baggage profiling, document checks, counter controls, baggage reconciliation and cargo security”.
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