Travel Company Promotes Africa Destinations, Rejects Stereotypes

Light Nwobodo

Diamonds and Pearls Travels, a Lagos-based travel company, has taken steps to correct all the negative narratives painted about African destinations by foreign tourists.  

Africa, in terms of landscape, has in abundance millions of thrills for every visitor that steps on its soil. It is the world’s second-largest continent, spanning 54 nations, more than 2,000 languages, and landscapes that range from the Sahara’s dunes to the beaches of Zanzibar, from Morocco’s medinas to Mount Kilimanjaro. It is home to some of the oldest civilisations ever recorded, extraordinary wildlife, and hospitality that rivals anywhere in the world.

Managing Partner and co-Founder at Diamonds and Pearls Travels, Wonuola Olatunde-Lamidi, said the stereotypes were because Africa doesn’t have a “backup plan”.

“It is the destination, and what clients return with is often the same reaction, ‘I had no idea’,” she noted.

Also worried why many underrate Africa as a destination, David Olatunde Lamidi, who is also a managing partner and co-founder at Diamonds and Pearls Travels, said: “That is the sentence we hear most often. And every time we hear it, we are reminded of exactly why we do this, not because Africa needs our help to be extraordinary, it has always been extraordinary, but because the story has not been told well enough.”

For Lamidi, the company’s mission is about demystifying travel and dismantling the idea that Africa is difficult or inaccessible. “There is a perception that Africa is complicated to get to, complicated to navigate, complicated to enjoy,” he said. “We built Diamonds and Pearls Travels to dismantle that perception, because it is simply not true.”

In the same vein, Mayowa Obasanya, junior partner at Diamonds and Pearls Travels, said: “What I have seen accompanying clients across these destinations is that Africa does not just meet expectations, it dismantles them entirely and builds something better in their place. People arrive curious and leave converted, and that transformation never gets old to witness.”

For Diamonds and Pearls Travels, that transformation is the point, not simply to help people visit Africa, but to help them see it properly in all its scale, beauty, complexity, and brilliance. “Because once people experience the continent for themselves, the old narrative rarely survives the journey,” Obasanya added.