The 29th of May, Democracy Day is annually observed as a public holiday in Nigeria. It connotes the restoration of democracy to the country evident in the handover of power from the military government under Gen. Abdulsalam Abubakar to a civilian administration. The Nigerian travel and hospitality sector is quite lucrative and has come to require a closer government attention. Jovago.com, amongst other African startups has taken the bold step to invest in the industry. As a new government comes in, Jovago presents some interesting facts about the travel and hospitality industry. Perhaps, this could encourage the incoming government to pay attention to the Nigeria’s travel and hospitality industry. If the incoming government can focus on tourism, Nigeria could attract a larger chunk of the billions of tourists that visit Africa possibly trumping South Africa, Egypt and Morocco to become Africa’s choice destination.

GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT (GDP)

Direct contribution of Travel and Tourism to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was 1,560.2 billion (1.7% of total GDP) in 2014 and it is expected to rise by 2.4% this year (2015).


Total Contribution of travel and tourism to GDP was 3,766.1 billion (4.1% of GDP) in 2014 and it is forecast to rise by 2.5% in 2015.
total contribution of tourism


EMPLOYMENT

Travel and Tourism directly supported 883,500 jobs (1.4% of total employment) in 2014 and it is expected to rise by 0.6% in 2015. The presence of online booking websites has contributed to this employment drive in the travel, tourism and hospitality industry.



Total contribution of Travel and tourism to employment including jobs directly supported by the industry was 2,198,500 jobs (3.6%) in 2014 and it is expected to rise by 0.6% this year to 2,212,500 jobs.
total employment


VISITOR EXPORTS

Visitor export refers to the outflow by international visitors for relaxation and business.

Visitor export generated 108.8 billion or 0.8% of total exports in 2014 and it is predicted to rise by 7.1% in this year.



INVESTMENTS

Travel and tourism investment in 2014 was a whopping N889.3 billion (6.6%) of total investment. It should rise by 8.3% this year.


Information sourced from Travel & Tourism, Economic Impact 2015 report on Nigeria by the World Travel and Tourism Council.

Still dunno what to comment