Chinedu Eze
Finglow Travels recently organised mentorship training for young Nigerians who are interested in the travel industry.
The CEO of the agency and President of the National Association of Nigerian Travel Agents (NANTA), Bankole Bernard, told THISDAY that the company dedicated the four weekends in May to train the youths.
Like all the other previous sessions, the last in this year’s edition of the programmes was held at the office complex of Amadeus, the international GDS company that is supporting Finglow on this initiative.
Bernard disclosed that about 30 youths benefitted this year from the Bernard Mentorship Programme, adding, he wanted to encourage young Nigerians to establish their own businesses instead of seeking for paid employment, adding that when he was struck with the desire to be an entrepreneurs, he resigned from banking to set up Finchglow Travels.
While addressing the beneficiaries of the programme, Bernard told them about the numerous opportunities that exist in the travel industry and encouraged them to find their niche and develop their capacities in the areas of their choice.
“When we opened in 2006, I started attending travel exhibitions and trade shows. It was after attending those exhibitions that I realised that I needed to know what I really wanted to become in the industry. Do I want to be a travel agency, a tour consultant, a travel management company? I realised that with the kind of brain I have, I will do well in business travel. I started following up on global travel market companies that focus on business travels. I approached the likes of HRT, BCD and others. Unfortunately, they had been taken up by other companies. I searched for the one that was untaken. That’s how I laid my hands on FCM Travel which is a subsidiary of a flight centre management that is based in Australia,†Bernard recalled.
He encouraged the youths to believe in themselves, saying that determination, constant search for knowledge, flexibility, which gives the humility to defer to superior arguments, integrity and constant communication and deference to God as some of the principles that saw him through his career in the banking industry and have sustained him as an entrepreneur.
“No two journeys are the same. They may look alike, bearing a lot of similarities, but everyone has a different destiny, a different purpose and we must work towards finding that through trust in God and working on the things that we have passion for,†he said.
