Chief executive officer, Mainstream Cargo Ltd Seyi Adewale, has decried the absence of local airlines on international routes as part of the setbacks to the growth of tourism in Nigeria.
Adewale who spoke as a panellist during the 2024 BusinessDay Tourism Conference said without the good handshake of the aviation and tourism industry, it would be difficult to unlock the potential of tourism in Nigeria.
“The starting point is how private airlines can take Bilateral Air Service Agreements (BASA) seriously and use it to attract people to Nigeria. To encourage tourism as much as possible, private airlines need to reciprocate BASA.
“BASA is between countries. Rwanda is attracting a lot of tourists into their country. They go to places where there are content creators and take them on tour offering them affordable packages. We are not using BASA to showcase Nigeria,” Adewale said.
He also spoke on the need for airport and passenger facilitation, adding that transit buses and information desks are needed across Nigerian airports.
“The first thing I look for at any airport I visit outside Nigeria is the information desk. You need transit buses. We need feeder airlines on our local routes to take passengers from international airlines to their home destinations.
“There are no real hotel-based airports at Murtala Muhammed International Airport, (MMIA) Lagos too. The one proposed to be built by MMA2 was stopped. If I fly in late at the airport, I am supposed to walk into a hotel through a bridge that is connected to the airport. These are part of the infrastructure that drives tourism,” he added.
Also speaking at the event, Iyadunni Atinuke Gbadebo, director sales and marketing, Eko Hotel, has disclosed that Eko Hotel generates billions of naira from its 12 days Tropical Christmas Wonderland, held annually.
She said the Tropical Christmas Wonderland is an annual event that repurposes Eko Hotels & Suites into a destination of choice for family getaways, and host to the grandest social event.
“Every year, for the last six years, I have ensured Eko Hotel continues to be a tourism destination.
“From 300 guests, we grew to 4,890 guests for our Tropical Christmas Wonderland. We all have a role to play in making this country a tourism destination. I am playing my own role and we are making billions from just the family Christmas event,” she said.
She said for Nigeria, oil has become old and unattractive while human capital development has become key to unlocking Nigeria’s tourism potential.
“We have everything we need to flourish as a people and we need to seize the opportunity to tell a positive story about Nigeria. We hope we can get opportunity to bring theatre back on stage. The national theatre being refurbished is bringing hope back again.
“Today it is more expensive to hire a Nigerian music artist than to hire an artist from the diaspora. While many Nigerians have decided to go to Japa, for the rest of us here, we have to use the opportunities and resources we have here,” Atinuke said.
She spoke passionately of how Nigeria can harness brains, some of which are engaged in obnoxious activities such as ‘yahoo yahoo’, harness them for positive benefits and export them as Nigeria’s crude oil.