DESTINATION NIGERIA, FALLACY OR PROJECT TO DIE FOR?
By Keshinro Hafees Olabode

One would be forgiven to say God landed in Nigeria, when he came to see Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Our country is blessed with everything seeming like preparation for his visit- the right weather, arable lands, huge deposits of various mineral resources, and a huge cerebral population. We probably have it all, and on top of it, oil ,so we can compete with Middle East who has all the stories about God in the holy books. Now, this is not my reason for writing this piece.

Nigeria is blessed with lots of tourist sites too, so much that we have virtually everything that would be the reason for an individual tourist to visit a particular destination or country- I am not talking about man-made destination like Dubai or Disneyland . Even such ‘crazy tours’ like Gorilla tracking, bird watching, butterfly touring, mountain climbing are available here, but who shows up for it? We all know that African countries like Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius, Seychelles, Gambia, Tanzania, Cape Verde and even South African plus many others run their economy on tourism. So what is wrong with Nigeria, especially as sights and sounds are not problems to us? Infrastructure? I will let that your thought pass.

Every Nigerian probably understands the word ‘PACKAGING’ as depicted in local parlance, but obviously not the Nigerian government . Now a quick one-does gorilla tracking in the wild of Cross River, with a specie regarded as the world’s rarest ape population, and the largest living primate with the largest chest, according to the Belgian Institute of Natural Science need any gargantuan infrastructure to be observed. Camp tents, knowledgeable armed tour guards, first aider,4x4 vehicles, are beyond us?

In South Africa, I paid to carry a lion cub, played with and fed it with a bottle and then I was taught to help rub its back until it belches, because it’s a very young cub. There I met a group who came all the way from Australia just to come and experience this. They stayed a week for the experience, and from this alone, South African airline, the embassy (visa), taxi company, tour company, hotel, crafts market, insurance company all earned from it. Young South African are kept in employment, and the government earned taxes.

I have also done what is called back street tour of slums in South Africa, Brazil etc (also done as the glamorous city tour) which somehow is virtually nothing, but interesting to a newbie who came all the way to a new country for tour. Any tour operator in Lagos who does city tour, or business district tour or fishing tour on that huge body of water, under the third mainland bridge we pass by everyday and see as nothing? Some countries do tours as tour of that kind of long bridge, and people pay as much as fifty dollars for it. What of pottery making tour in Abeokuta? I have done a two day tour of Lagos for an American group, (fell on my lap) with a night cap (tour of island clubs) and they had huge fun, so I know what I am talking about. The truth is glaring, no PACKAGING for our Nigerian tour packages.

France had to build the Eiffel and put lights on it to attract people, and many other monuments that attract people were built with some history behind them. We do not have to build a lot or not at all, we just have them. A Kilimanjaro or Ikogosi can never be built, and therefore unique, so sell it the right way and people will throng in.

All the expensive adverts on CNN, BCC or the international magazines (Good people, Great nation) will not help us. We need to take the fight outside, roll our sleeves like the South Africans. Their government came here with their tour operators, and met ours to convince us to sell South Africa as destination to our people. They offer us free travels ‘ to experience or taste ’ what they want us to sell and we have done volumes for them. If we want to sell ‘know your root tours’ for example to Black Brazilians, African Americans, Cubans etc, we need to go and meet their tour operators, bring them here, offer them packages and give them incentives to sell these packages to their people. Hotels, car hire companies, tour sites all the need to be inside this train and give reasonable cost, to make this possible. One on one selling by agents abroad to their citizens is a major key to selling Nigeria. They can convince individuals that we are not as dangerous as we are portrayed by the world media. We are not selling infrastructure only, we are selling Nigeria and Africa with all our attending challenges plus a unique Nigerian experience. Maybe only NTDC can do this, rather than begging impoverish Nigerians to tour Nigeria (my opinion)

So it’s time for all various managements of the different sites, private or government to come together, and find means of meeting agents abroad and to help them come down. If we are waiting till our sites are picture perfect or achieve same standard with Europe , we will wait forever. This is the only way, Durbar, Osun Oshogbo, Eyo and and Calarba festival can bring foreigners down and Nigeria and Nigerians can earn. Please do not talk security, because there are cities in Brazil, South Africa and America who have higher crime rates and killings than us but still pull in tourist by the truck.

And most importantly, Nigerians should watch their mouth, especially on the internet, your country is not the worst in the world, put in a few good words for your country, and we would not need a CNN advert, but reap huge. So while we wait to get it right, let us sell DESTINATION NIGERIA to the rest of the world, and let’s make some money.

Keshinro Hafees Olabode is the CEO of Butterfly Tourism Nigeria
hafeeskeshinro@gmail.com