Despite Over 1000 Tourism Sites, Nigeria Projected to Lose $8.2bn by 2032

Chinedu Eze

Nigeria is projected to lose about $8.2 billion by 2032 from the tourism sector despite having over 1000 recognised tourism sites.

This is because of its inability to maximise opportunities offered by the industry.

It is also projected that Nigeria could be generating additional $3000 million annually if there is serious push to develop the sector.

Recently, the Minister of Tourism, Hanatu Musa Musawa identified some of the nation’s tourism sites to include historical monuments, museums, natural landscapes, beaches, national parks, waterfalls and others.

Nigeria’s Representative at Wild Africa, Festus Iyorah, during the World Wildlife Day 2025 event in Lagos, last year, emphasised that Nigeria’s travel and tourism sector could generate nearly N12.3 trillion ($8.2 billion) and create 2.6 million new jobs by 2032.

Industry insiders said Nigeria has a lot to gain by developing the industry.

Travel expert and organiser of Akwaaba African Travel Market, Ambassador Ikechi Uko, told THISDAY in a telephone interview that Nigeria is yet to key into the tourism industry as a revenue resource to boost its GDP as some other countries in Africa have done. 

According to him, countries like Rwanda, Ghana, Kenya, Benin Republic, Gambia and Seychelles Island have waived visa for citizens from African countries. This is meant to serve as incentive for people to travel to the countries and spend few days visiting tourist sites, enjoying the hospitality they can offer. 

“Other countries in Africa allow us to come to their countries but we don’t allow them to come to ours. We cannot develop our tourism industry that way and there are a lot of money in tourism. Some African countries that are serious about tourism have offered zero visa to Africans; just come with your passport and some of them offer visa on arrival but ours is still not easy to obtain but there is an improvement compared to the past,” he said.

It was learnt that in 2024 tourism generated about $42. 6 billion to African countries and the major beneficiaries of this huge revenue were Morocco ($11.3 billion), South Africa ($5.35 billion), Egypt ($15.3 billion) Kenya, Rwanda, The Gambia, Tanzania, Tunisia.  Also, Africa welcomes about 73.9 million international tourists and it is projected that this figure could double in the coming years if Nigeria and other African countries that have potential to attract tourists open up their countries by relaxing their immigration and visa policies.

Former President of the National Association of Nigeria Travel Agencies (NATA) and Managing Director/CEO of Topaz Travel and Tours, Mrs. Susan Akporiaye, told THISDAY that from all indications, Nigeria is not yet ready to develop its tourism sector.

Akporiaye emphasised that if Nigeria is ready it would do it, noting that not even lack of infrastructure or insecurity will stop Nigeria if it zeroed its mind to develop the environment that will attract international tourists to the country.

“If Nigeria becomes serious today about developing the tourism industry, the Minister will talk to Immigration and tell them what to do to relax the visa conditions to make easy for people to come into the country as tourists. We can do it if we become serious about it,” she said.

She also noted that there are some institutions that offer grants to countries that wish to develop their tourism industry, disclosing that countries like Tanzania, Kenya and others benefit from such international institutions; that if Nigeria is ready it will prepare and meet the conditions given to benefit from such grants.

“Institutions like UN Watercourse Convention (UNWC), African Development Bank (AfDB) give grants on tourism. Countries like Kenya, Tanzania and others are benefitting from such grants. Because they are serious about developing their tourism they always seek for where they can get such grants. If Nigeria is serious it will seek for such grants. Other African countries are accessing it. We had Detty December and we liked it. We can develop our tourism and all year-round tourists will be visiting our country.

“Our visa policy is a setback but when we become serious in developing our tourism, government will know what to do to liberalise the visa process to encourage foreigners to visit our country. For now, we are just like India, charging so much money for visa. Nigerians pay almost N1 million to obtain Indian visa. This is because India is interested in business visit and medical visit. Any country interested in tourism cannot charge huge amount of money for its visa. I think Nigeria is more interested in business visits; when it is ready to develop its tourism, it knows what to do,” she said.

The former NANTA President also disclosed that that Seychelles Island which stopped offering visa on arrival to Nigerians, “because of incidents that happened has reviewed its policy and decided to open its country to Nigerians again and now Nigerians can travel to that country and obtain visa on arrival.”

“Other African countries are getting it right. South Africa has relaxed its visa for some countries in Africa. Seychelles has opened its country for Nigerians and now they offer visa on arrival. They have resolved the issue they have with Nigeria. The behaviour of our Immigration officials show that we are not ready. Our visa is costly, just like that of India,” she added.

The Group Managing Director, Finchglow Holdings Limited, Bankole Bernard, recently told THISDAY that if Nigeria actually wished to develop its tourism industry, it needed to be tourism ready, emphasising that whenever Nigeria gets ready to earn huge money from tourism, the signs will show in all ramifications.

Bernard who is the current President of Association of African Aviation Training Organisations, Nigeria (AATON), also cited example with Saudi Arabia, saying that despite the fact that the country records about 13 million tourists every year, including those who visit the country on pilgrimage, Saudi Arabia plans to attract $80 billion in private investment to supplement state funding for tourism development with the target to grow more than twice the number of tourists that visit the country annually.

“Why are we undermining tourism? A lot of Nigerians in the Diaspora want to come to Nigeria with their friends, but they face Visa barriers. If the come they will spend money in Nigeria which will help to boost our economy. Why do we speak from both sides of our mouth? We say we want to grow tourism but at the same time we put obstacles though stringent Visa rules to discourage people from visiting.

“We need to relax our Visa rules, reduce bottlenecks. I don’t understand these barriers. The moment people find out that there are barriers, they quickly choose another country to travel to. Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda have removed such barriers in their Visa process and they are recording increased influx of tourists. Do you know that Ghana’s Cedi is rising against the US dollar? So, this is not about big or small country; it is about planning and being intentional,” Bernard said.