Desperate for a holiday, some families in Abuja decided to patronize a local holiday company to fulfill their wish for a vacation despite the economic recession. They opted for Motley Travels and Logistics Limited which promised them paradise in Obudu, only to discover that the owner – Mark More, was just out to clean out on the opportunity while ruining their fairy tale Christmas in the mountains. Half way through the road trip they experienced busted tyres which left them stranded for hours in the wild before Lafia in Nassarawa state. Mark abandoned his travelers for hours only to appear with stories, the journey from Abuja to Obudu lasted 18hours…. The passengers got there by midnight. Part two of their agonies was the fact that they had to scramble for food, real hustle to eat as they became stranded with no option but to eat rice without stew. Mark seeing the families were stranded now asked them to bring out all the money on them if they intend to enjoy Obudu, they paid him from 1,500 naira to ride the cable car. Eventually Mark dismissed the families to go join public transport back to Abuja as he could no longer cater for them. The experience was hellish for the families, as senior executives became beggars in Obudu from 23rd – 26th December 2016 all in the name of #MadeinNigeria holiday. Mark’s greed knows no bounds. Before you go on any tour, do your research first!!!! till today as i speak, Motley travels has not refunded the money the families used to buy fuel for him nor the one they used to charter bus. No apology sef, later they will say why not patronise Nigeria companies? There is a huge opportunity for tour companies in Abuja, I know many people who want to buy tour package but unfortunately there's is no credible tour company.

My attention was just called to this write up and I deem it necessary to respond to it in other to protect the brand that has been built over the years.

Foremost, I see this write up as a display of writing prowess of the writer who didn’t give a true account of what happened.

The holiday was a huge success contrary to the impression being put out here by the writer who has deliberately excluded his/her true identity in the write up. However, this is not to say there wasn’t the challenge of a flat tyre (and not bursted tyre as claimed).

The Bus had a flat tyre of which we tried to fix in Lafia by replacing with the spare. On replacing with the spare tyre, which we considered not fit enough to complete the journey, we had to drive far below the travel speed because we were carrying families and it was better to be safe than sorry. So we opted to look for a new tyre for the Bus. We had to comb the town of Makurdi to get a replacement and this took a lot of time and tourists were told the situation and what we were doing to resolve it. Some took out time to eat and drink and of course Some were angry at the delays.

As the lead, I couldn’t just let the driver alone to look for tyre as he may just waste unnecessary time perhaps doing some other things in the guise of looking for tyre replacement, so I opted to follow him while the other team member stayed with the Tourists. If I hadn’t gone with the driver in search of tyre replacement, I would have also thought that he just went doing other things not considering the tourists.

Eventually, it was fixed and we apologized and moved on. Perhaps as a way to retaliate, some tourists had to make the bus stop almost every 30mins to pee (due to the refreshment intake while they were waiting-I suppose). We had taken their time so it was just right we obliged them.

As for the the scramble for food - it’s laughable to say the least. Some tourists believed that every other person would do their bidding or wait for them. There is time allocation for food. Some of these tourists who complain about food are those who would go almost at the close of the meal schedule because they deliberately would not join others on the bus when it’s time to take tourists to the restaurant. And to the best of my knowledge, their complaint was that there was no food for them to eat.

As for the cable ride, it’s also regrettable how some people don’t read what packages are offered. The cable car was an Ad-on in the package. It was never to be paid for by Motley. I wonder how some understood that and a few just deliberately didn’t.

On our return day, just as we were descending the mountain to depart for Abuja, one of the buses had a clutch problem. It was quite unexpected and disappointing considering the wahala when we were coming to OBUDU. We pleaded with them and got a mechanic to fix it. But due to the initial experience they had, some decided not to wait for the bus to be fixed rather, they opted to get commercial bus to take them to Abuja. Eventually, it was fixed and we all arrived Abuja AT THE SAME TIME. I was on the bus that was fixed and as if I knew something like this may come up, I took a photo of the empty bus driving behind them as a proof.

Summarily, all of these things made open areas for lessons for a better experience. We took our buses from a popular Transport Service company in a reputable hotel in Abuja and never expected that such could come up considering where we hired them. However, this made us review our Logistics engagement.

REVIEWS MADE AFTERWARDS

** We have since engaged a better and more competent Transport company with verifiable maintenance records for all our tours including the vacation during the last Easter 2017 to OBUDU and we had departures from Abuja / Portharcourt / Enugu and Lagos till date and nothing of such has ever occurred again.

** We created a Watsapp group “The Naija Tourist”, through which we were able to have a real time monitoring and coordination from all departure points such that all tourists are migrated to the group and are able to share experiences on our tours.

** We have also made OBUDU to review our feedback mechanism which led to a better service to tourists on the resort during our subsequent trips there.

We are only trying to promote tourism in Nigeria and making families cultivate the habit of holidaying in Nigeria. This has had its own challenges though, but we have always improved as every tour is always BETTER than the last.

You can go through our social media handles:

Instagram - @motleytravels
Facebook - www.facebook.com/motleytravels.

If you have the time and patience and read through the comments of tourists on their experiences, you will see that it has always been fun and memorable.

Warm regards.

Mark More.