NO doubt, National Tourism Transportation Summit and Expo is making a significant effort at repositioning the tourism value chain for a sustainable future for stakeholders to practically see reasons they have to come together to make the tourism industry a major factor in the Nigeria business ecosystem viz-a-viz networking with other African countries for trade bids.
In it fifth edition one coud give the organiser a promising nod of agreement that the event is creating a new space of engagement for both core and allied tourism stakeholders to streamline innovative policies that will rapidly grow the industry for a better public and private sector partnership.
However, the 2022 edition of the summit and expo which rallied the public and private sector to a two-day event at the Abuja International Conference Centre, came handy with highly loaded panel discussions, parading topnotch and experienced industry experts and stakeholders, who bare their mind on the theme of the 2022 edition titled: “African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA): Strengthening Connectivity, Effect and Partnership,” which took its roots from last year’s theme; Tourism Transportation Connectivity: Leveraging the Africa Con-tinental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA),
Speaking at the event the Convener and President of Institute of Tourism Professioners of Nigeria, Chief Abiodun Odusanwo, who gave a sound lead to the National TourismTransportation Summit and Expo, said that ‘‘Tourism Transport Summit for 2022 seeks to deliberate on the complex relationship between transport provision and tourism in boosting the economy of the continent via a single market for goods, services, facilitated by movement of persons and to deepen the economic integration of the African continent in accordance with the Pan – African vision of an integrated, prosperous and peaceful Africa, which AfCFTA promises to deliver.
‘‘AfCFTA is meant to increase bilateral trade agreements and liberalisation of trade between two or more countries for ease of doing business in the African continent. ‘‘At ITPN, we are interested in Nigeria as a key player, to be a greater beneficiary of AfCFTA.
‘‘It is therefore the wish of ITPN, as organisers of the Tourism Transportation Summit and Expo, that Nigeria and indeed the Nigerian people maximally benefit from the AfCFTA regime in all facets of human endeavours to achieve the socio-economic, industrialisation as well as technological breakthrough that we all yearned for, with tourism and transportation as critical areas of focus.’’
Setting the stage on a high note on the home front readiness, the Director General of Nigerian Tourism Development Corporation (NTDC), who led a panel discussion on the topic: AFRICA’S TOURISM: A GLOBAL DESTINATION FOR WORLD INVESTMENT, asked the panelists; how ready is Nigeria to take advantage of the AfCFTA
According to Coker “The African free-trade area is the largest in the world, in terms of the number of participating countries. There are currently 55-member countries in the AfCFTA, with a target market of about 1.3 billion people.The agreement offers the continent multiple opportunities with competing regions for the global tourism market.
“Ironically, while Africa accounts for less than three per cent of global trade and GDP, it constitutes about 16.7 per cent of global population. The AfCFTA regional market is therefore a major opportunity to help African countries diversify their exports, accelerate growth, and attract foreign direct investment.
“The brand utilizes the media, mostly digital media to amplify its message. We recognise that the future is digital, therefore the aim is to reach a wider audience across the globe, leveraging on disruptive technologies such as the smart apps that drive social media interactions.
“We believe that when properly harnessed, tourism can contribute a lot more to the size of the Nigerian GDP, as it creates an increasing number of jobs, and livelihoods, beyond what I believe has been greatly underestimated by international and local pundits.
“The Institute of Tourism Professionals and its leadership deserve some commendation for its steadfastness in the promotion of sustainable tourism development and the annual hosting of this Summit which constantly demonstrates the linkages between tourism and transportation.”
The panelists, who differ in their opinion on the readiness of Nigeria and Africa in taking full advantage of the AfCFTA, explained that the processes to actualise the potentialities of the free trade area had just started, saying that more needed to be done in breaking the connectivity barriers in African borders.
According to the President of La Campaign Tropicana Beach resorts, Ambassador Wanle Akinboboye, Nigeria and Africa have not yet started the process.
Akinboboye spoke eloquently of the statistically advantage of Africa and how Nigeria which has the domestic market population should think out of the box to take advantage of the trade space created by AfCFTA.
“This AfCFTA agreement is to bring us under one umbrella to see how we can work and trade together, so what I see and hear from my travels across Africa is how each country is trying to take advantage of the next country. But we have to see how we can work together, “There has to been a concerted effort to make it work. starting with a policy process that will identify and strategically explorre all windows of opportunities and advantage to key into the big picture of the AfCFTA, Akinboboye added.
“Therefore, we expect to train ourselves to understand the idea behind it. We must take advantage so that we have absolute monopoly. When we do nobody can compete with us.
“We need to create something special for Africa. I will like to appeal that in the process of developing this AfCFTA that we must work together, not like footballers and competitors but build it around our collective development and growth so that we can stop to be the largest but the poorest continent.
Also in her contribution, the President of National Association of Nigeria Travel Agency (NANTA), Mrs Susan Akporiaye, who believe that Nigeria is not fully ready to explore the advantages of AfCFTA, said that the government and core stakeholders had to re-engage and strategically look at areas of comparative advantage to start the process of keying into the meanstreem.
“We should engage others in the area of seamless connectivity and free border flow within our region; when those are done, then we can start looking at the trade opportunities to explore as well as benefit from.
“Trade barriers which include interconnectivity problem and free flow of people within the region must be tackled.
“We on our part as NANTA have started engaging some African countries on opportunities that will bring a win-win gain to the parties we have sealed deals with.”
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