The Federation of Tourism Association of Nigeria (FTAN) says less than three per cent of tourists visiting Africa annually choose Nigeria as their destinations.
Karim Rabo, the FTAN president, told NAN in Lagos on Sunday that the figure was low compared to other African countries that usually recorded huge patronage of international tourists.
He attributed the low patronage to poor attitudes usually exhibited by Nigerian tour operators and travel agencies.
He also said that Nigerian tour operators and travel agencies were more interested in packaging Nigerian tourists wishing to travel abroad rather than packaging international tourists to Nigeria.
“Nigerian tour operators and travel agents promote more of outbound tourism than inbound which is not encouraging.
“We need to get it right by promoting more of domestic tourism asset/potential to the outside world than promoting outbound tourism,” he said.
Rabo said that there was a dearth of data about tourism consumptions and market patterns.
“Both the Federal and state government have no data that show the impact of tourism receipts on Nigeria economy,” he said.
He said that FTAN would partner multinational organisations and the Nigeria Bureau of Statistics (NBS) to set up structures that would be collating tourists’ data at all leading tourists’ destinations in Nigeria.
Rabo said that these would enable the government to know the impacts and contributions of tourism sector to the Nigerian economy.
The president said that the association was the biggest investor in Nigerian tourism industry.
“It has been contributing enormously to Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and employs thousands of Nigerians across the country,” he said.
Rabo said that the association members include hoteliers; travel agencies, tour operators, tourism academia, travel journalists and cultural artisans.
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Tourists are priced out by the cost of visiting Nigeria:
1. Security
2. Poor transportation infrastructure
3. Greedy tourism companies
4. Inarticulated tourism market
5. Poor local participants
6. We have long way to go!
The reason no one visits Nigeria is because the government makes it VERY difficult to visit, in fact Nigeria is one of the most difficult countries in the world to visit. I have been to 106 countries, 25 of which were in Africa and never have I had so much trouble getting a tourist visa. I was rejected at three embassies in getting a visa before I finally got one and ended up having to spend $220 for it.
A friend of mine just spent two weeks trying to get into Nigeria for tourism and just gave up.
Nigeria has tourist potential. Seriously though. If the country has any interest in tourists and their money they need to make it possible to enter the country. Sure the USA and Europe make it difficult to for Nigerians to visit. There is a difference. We only want to visit while Nigerians want to immigrate.
Most tourists who do make it to Nigeria don’t want to do Tourist companies. They are like me who like to take local transport and stay with people…. people who like to fully experience the culture and learn about the country.
I like Nigeria. I am happy I went. Unfortunately for now most people who would visit Nigeria are turned away from visiting and so go to countries with smarter visa policies.
-Shawn
Hello Shawn, lucky for you, I’m about to make everything a lot easier. Why not hit me up the next time you plan to visit Nigeria and see how easy it real is.