Tribune Tourism Editor, Wale Olapade wins NANTA Best Travel Print Media of the Year

Following the outstanding record in the specialised reporting of the travel industry in Nigeria, Tribune’s Tourism Editor, Wale Olapade has won the National Association of Nigerian Travel Agencies (NANTA) 2021 Best Print Travel Report of the Year.

The award which was held at the Golf View Hotel and Suites in Lagos also saw the apex travel association in the country inducting Mr Olapade into the maiden class of NANTA Hall of Fame alongside 11 other prominent travel reporters across different media houses in Nigeria.

Mr Olapade, who is on the Business Desk Team of the Nigerian Tribune also has a specialised and the only Travelpulse and MICE page in Nigeria which have won series of awards as a mark of outstanding recognition which include Nigeria Media Merit Award (NMMA) MICE reporter of the year for Nigeria and West Africa among others.

Among the first class ……………. of the NANTA Media Hall of Fame in Lagos include Special Adviser, Media and Publicity to President Muhammadu Buhari, Mr Femi Adesina, Tribune Tourism Editor, Wale Olapade, Frank Meke of The Sun, Chinedu Eze of This Day, Wole Shadare of New Telegraph.

Others were Taiye Olayemi of News Agency of Nigeria, Nosa Aituamen of Radio Nigeria, Ifeoma Okeke of Business Day, Franklin Ihejirika of Nigerian Frank News, Abel Orukpe of Abel News and Dr Wole Oyebade of The Guardian.

For the category of the media awards, the Best Online Mediums (joint winners) goes to the Abel News, Nigerian Frank News, Taiye Olayemi of News Agency of Nigeria and Aviation Metric (Wole Shadere).

Awardees for the Best Radio Stations (Travel News joint winners) are Aviation Runway (Metro FM) and Tourism in Perspective (Jordan Radio).

In the print category, the joint winners include Wale Olapade of Nigerian Tribune (Travelpulse&Mice), Chinedu Eze (Thisday), Segun Kioki (Leadership), Nigerian Telegraph newspaper (Andrew okungbowa) while the overall winner for media is Abel News.

Speaking at the award ceremony in Lagos, the President of NANTA, Mrs Susan Akporiaye described the media as the backbone of NANTA in the promotion of activities of the travel industry.

“We at NANTA cannot confidently boast that our years of struggles and prosperity were a process of our strength alone.”

She emphasised that, through their years of struggle to stay afloat in the business, the media; radio, television, the newspapers and online had assisted in pushing out to the public what NANTA represents.

“The travel media was with us all the way and the introduction of the media Hall of Fame is my appreciation which henceforth will form the fulcrum of our relationship and it will become the permanent history of NANTA.”

“NANTA media award didn’t start with me, but I felt we need to inaugurate it again to encourage best travel reporting practices,” she said.

Akporiaye said the awardees should consider themselves part of the NANTA family, adding that they should not hesitate to advise the association when necessary.

“As I told Femi Adesina, whom we  inducted yesterday in Abuja into the NANTA Media Hall of Fame, we shall not forget your labour of love for the best of our nation and industry,” she said.

Akporiaye said It was a great honour and privilege to work with the media for the good of the nation.

Also one of the pillars of the travel industry and an aviation and travel expert, Dr Gbenga Olowo, in his remarks, did not only applaud the travel media for their display of professionalism, but also urged them to continue to be fearless in reporting the truth.

“I salute you for doing a very good professional job and for being innovative in what you are doing, that is the only way the country can move forward.”

Olowo commended NANTA president for being innovative and always creating friendships which had brought lots of business for members of the association.

Chairman, Board of Trustees, NANTA, Dayo Adeola, who is also an expert in the travel trade, fondly referred to as the ‘travel oracle’ said because of media reports, NANTA had earned the respect it deserved and seen as a family reliable is to do business with.

“I want to appreciate you on behalf of NANTA and we will continue to support you and please, where we err we want you to see us as human.”

Adeola also promised to set out a day for the travel journalists to have an intensive retreat on the new trend in the travel world as business has gone beyond the usual industry routine.

He assured that he will look at a day retreat to equip the media with the new ways of the travel trade which will help the journalists with a more robust way of reporting the industry.