Chief Executive Officer of TravelLab Nigeria Limited, Shalom Asuquo, has called for a bold transformation of Nigeria’s tourism and festival ecosystem through structure, technology, storytelling, and innovation, declaring that the future of tourism lies beyond celebrations and cultural displays.
Asuquo made the remarks while speaking as a guest at the Naija7Wonders Zoom Conference hosted by tourism promoter, Ikechi Uko, where she delivered a presentation on the theme: “Festivals & Tourism in Nigeria: A New Pathway.”
Speaking passionately about the future of Nigerian tourism, Asuquo argued that the country’s challenge is not a lack of culture, festivals, or attractions, but rather the absence of proper structure, packaging, technology, and long-term vision. “Nigeria does not lack culture. It does not lack festivals. It does not lack beauty or even global attention. What Nigeria has lacked is structure, packaging, technology, and vision,” she said. She explained that the global tourism industry has evolved into what experts now describe as the “experience economy,” where travellers are increasingly seeking emotional connections, immersive experiences, and memorable storytelling rather than merely sightseeing.
According to her, successful tourism destinations across the world have shifted from simply showcasing attractions to creating experiences that visitors can emotionally connect with and share digitally. Drawing comparisons with global festivals such as Rio Carnival, Coachella, Afro Nation, and the Dubai Shopping Festival, Asuquo said Nigerian festivals have the potential to become year-round economic ecosystems capable of driving employment, investment, and destination branding. She advocated for the development of a coordinated national tourism calendar that would allow tourism practitioners to curate travel experiences around festivals and cultural events across Nigeria.
The TravelLab CEO also emphasized the growing role of digital storytelling and the creator economy in shaping global tourism decisions. She noted that social media creators, podcasters, documentary filmmakers, and influencers now play a central role in destination marketing. “If it is not digitally visible, then it is economically invisible,” she stated. Asuquo urged stakeholders to embrace immersive content creation, live-streamed festivals, drone storytelling, and digital tourism archives capable of positioning Nigeria competitively in the global tourism market.
She further highlighted the opportunities presented by artificial intelligence and smart tourism technologies, explaining that AI is already transforming global travel through personalized experiences, automated customer service, multilingual support, crowd management, and predictive travel behaviour systems. According to her, Nigeria must move from merely consuming tourism technology to actively building technology-driven tourism platforms that integrate flights, hotels, festivals, transportation, food, and local experiences into one seamless ecosystem. She also identified diaspora and identity tourism as another major growth pathway, citing Ghana’s successful “Year of Return” initiative as an example Nigeria could learn from.
Asuquo noted that many Africans in the diaspora are searching for cultural identity, ancestral connection, and spiritual reconnection, creating opportunities for Nigeria to package festivals and cultural experiences as homecoming and heritage tourism products. “We are not just selling events; we are selling connection,” she said. In her closing remarks, she stressed that tourism should no longer be viewed merely as entertainment or isolated celebrations, but as a scalable economic ecosystem capable of stimulating multiple industries including aviation, hospitality, fashion, transportation, food, media, security, and technology. “Tourism is movement and movement creates money,” she concluded. “If we get this right, tourism will not just entertain Nigeria — tourism will employ Nigeria, empower Nigeria, reposition Nigeria and economically transform Nigeria.”
