Justina Uzo
The President and Chief Executive Officer of Gadeshire Travels and Tours Limited, Mr. Olugbenga Adebayo has taken a hard look at the nation’s travel and tourism subsector and concluded that the sector needs appropriate attention as “it has capacity to boost and sustain our challenging economy.”
Adebayo, whose tour firm recently hosted a five-man group of tourists and investors from Malaysia and Indonesia, expressed dissatisfaction with the myriads of challenges facing the travel industry.
He spoke on the many hiccups he encountered in executing the package and therefore called on the Nigerian government to adopt a seamless process from visa procurement and clearing at the airport to make it easier for tourists to visit Nigeria.
“When you are putting together a tour for international tourists, you make arrangement to cover visa processing, visa fees and logistics. These are the areas we are having challenges. The experience of our guests in getting visas was harrowing, therefore we still need to visit the visa fees regime; it is not encouraging at all,” he said.
One of the issues Adebayo hammered on is reciprocity in visa fees. The tourism operator said Nigeria needs to revisit this.
He said, “If the United States of America is charging Nigeria $150 (N69, 000), especially for a visitor’s visa, then Nigeria is expected to charge the same fees (uniformity in visa fees). I am sure if you go to the Malaysian embassy in Nigeria, the visa fee is not more than N20,000. Thus, if a Malaysian is coming to Nigeria and he is spending almost N200,000 for visa procurement, then there is no uniformity at all or reciprocity in that aspect.”
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Internal Affairs, he said, need to look into this because “if businesses and tour operators are putting resources into marketing and promoting Nigeria and our government is not complementing these efforts, then it is not good enough.”
He continued, “In my organisation, there is a department that is called Visiting-Nigeria which carries out ground handling services for visitors visiting Nigeria for business, tours, trade missions, MICE and others. It is also the department in our organisation with the core responsibility of marketing Nigeria as a preferred destination to visitors all around the globe.
“We put a lot of resources into marketing some of Nigeria’s destinations that we know are viable. We also, most times, send our personnel to trade fairs, travel fairs, trade missions, conferences, studies and training abroad to market and promote Nigeria’s destination. But when we put in all these efforts and we don’t see the government playing its part, it is very frustrating.”
On visa issue, he said that is one of the ways that the government can support travel business if it is properly done.
“We are not asking the government not to carry out due diligence, but it should be done in such a way as not to discourage the visitors or make it difficult for them to obtain visas or entry permits into Nigeria. If you make it that difficult, it will affect our businesses, and it will also have an adverse effect on direct foreign investment (FDI), foreign exchange earnings, job creation and sustainability of all tourism job chains and also on our national brands.
“For instance, the travel arrangement of his recent tour took over three months. The coordinator had to visit Nigerian Embassy in Malaysia several times before he could get the visa for the group members.
“Now imagine that the first set of tourists visiting Nigeria from Malaysia and Indonesia had to face this process of forth and back for an entry visa. The visa process has to be conducted in a seamless manner to make it easier for the visitors and us, especially people who are coming for tourism, investment and business purposes.”
The travel company is looking forward to receiving over 200 visitors from Malaysia and Indonesia in 2023, people who are coming on trade missions, and tourism, and to participate in some of our local festivals.
Adebayo said: “Now, imagine if it takes between three and four hours to clear five foreign passengers at the international airport, how many hours will it take to clear between 100 and 200 foreign visitors at the airport?
“These are some of the issues our travel partners in Malaysia raised during their visit. We need to change to be able to get benefits. Visitors ought to have a different perception about Nigeria totally different from what they have been reading over the Internet or heard from others.
“Visitors come with foreign currency, and spend their money in Nigeria which would boost the economy and foreign currency earning levels.”
For example, he said tourists lodge in hotels and the government earns revenue from these hotels in form of taxes and levies, Value Added Tax (VAT) and service charges as well as taxes from other vendors or service providers.
