As the National Association of Nigerian Travel Agencies (NANTA), prepare to elect a new executive, the presidential candidate of the association, Susan Akporiaye has promised to improve Nigeria’s travel and tourism sector.
Akporiaye, said the agency would improve the sector by selling the country’s culture, food, music and fashion among others at international trade exhibitions through its partnership with relevant government agencies.
Speaking while unveiling her manifesto and team for NANTA’s elective Annual General Meeting coming up in March in Kano, during a press briefing in Lagos recently, Akporiaye who is going into the contest unopposed promised to also strengthen the database of the association if elected president.
NANTA, she said would talk more with partners such as governments, airlines, media among others, to tell them that they should complement each other.
She explained that she would also work to improve the relationship between airlines and travel agencies if elected, adding that NANTA should not be seen to be competing with airlines, which are its principle partners.
The NANTA presidential hopeful reassured members and stakeholders that the body, after 43 years, would refocus and retool for a new generation of trade business and political realignment that could make it stand above its pears.
Akporiaye, who is also the chairperson of the AGM organising committee and first deputy president noted that there has been calls in recent times for deep interrogation of NANTA collective and vision with some people within and outside its environment agitating for policy shift and redirection for NANTA as an institution.
She reassured her members, the federal government and their principal stakeholders, that her team is sufficiently aware of the desire to up the aviation game in the downstream sector, project its national profitability, encourage its acceptability as a veritable pillar of national economic contributor and strong bastion of academic research and recognition.
According to her, “Over the years, NANTA has grown to attract the attention and respect of the government. We shall innovate on this approach and get NANTA to play a key role in women affairs without which homes today would be in trouble”.
