Federal Government needs tourism masterplan to re-engineer tourism sector- Ikechi Uko

By Renn Offor

The need for the federal government of Nigeria to re-engineer a tourism master-plan with complementary sustainable tourism policy was the thrust of this year’s NANTA AGM and conference, going by the paper presented by the keynote speaker Mr. Ikechi Uko. Ikechi said as he presented a scholarly paper in which he delved into successive governments in Nigeria and traced their achievements and contributions to tourism. The event held inside the Premier Hotel Ibadan, Oyo State from Wednesday 16^th to Friday 18^th March 2016.

In his paper, Mr. Uko posited strongly that former president Olusegun Obasanjo was the best thing that that happened to tourism in Nigeria, and that he was by far the best president with a solid and clear focus targeted at strategically developing tourism in Nigeria, while he lamented the current government for not having shown any interest in transforming the sector from he woes that befell it from that of Jonathan.

Alhaji Aminu Agoha, the outgoing national president addressing the delegates, took time to recount the achievements of the association in over 40 years since its existence, and that of his tenure in the last four years. ‘It’s about 40 years since Chief Jerry Nwosu convened the first meeting…in 1974. Then there were less than 10 airlines and few travel agencies operating in Nigeria. A lot has changed in since then. There are now 61 airlines and NANTA has grown into Africa’s foremost Travel Trade Association, with 1, 510 members employing over 20,000 people in Nigeria and beyond’.

Recounting the current figures of growth in the industry, Agoha said that ‘here are the current figures regarding sales on the Billing and Settlement Plan (BSP): 50 active airlines; 768 Active Travel Agencies; Total BSP Sales 2014:- USD$1,326,304,373.00; Total BSP Sales Jan to Sept 2015:- USD$1,212,249,239.53; Total Default amount Jan to Oct 2015:- USD$4,077,115.40 (51 agents); Current defaulted amount:- USD$502,722.68; Percentage default recovered:-USD$87%; Percentage default rate 2015:- 0.3%; Percentage outstanding amount of total sales:- 0.04%.’

Alhaji Aminu concluded his address by saying, ‘Like actors and actresses in a motion picture, we all have entrances and exits… I take my humble exit after four eventful years as the National president of our great Association…’

On his keynote speech, Mr. Uko noted that according to the Africa Tourism Monitor, Nigeria was not in the top 3 destinations in 2014 with the highest number of tourists in Africa. ‘Two North African countries top the list of most-visited countries in Africa. Egypt experienced the strongest growth in the sector in 2014, with 454,000 more international arrivals than in 2013, an increase of 5% in just one year. Second on the list is Morocco, which once again recorded more than 10 million incoming international tourists in 2014 -:- an increase of 236,000 when compared with the previous year. In third place is Cote d’Ivoire, in West Africa. The country is experiencing a strong economic recovery.

Although it recorded “only” 91,000 more international arrivals in 2014 than in 2013, this figure represents a 24% rise in just 12 months. This double-digit growth provides yet further evidence of the country’s vast tourism potential. This influx of tourists means more money coming into the continent. In 2014, Africa recorded US $43.6 billion in revenue. According to the UK’s World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC), the international tourism sector now accounts for 8.1% of Africa’s total GDP’.

Before delving into the hospitality sector, he explained that tourism employs over 20million people in Africa, raking 7.1 per cent of all jobs on the continent; but that the economic impact of tourism is more than job creation, as he focused on hospitality.

‘The hospitality sector is experiencing particularly rapid growth and is expanding into new countries such as Mauritania, which have, until now, remained largely on the fringes. According to the report, it is Sub-Saharan Africa, rather than North Africa, that is benefiting most from the expansion of hotel chains and the corresponding Increase in the number of available rooms. Nigeria, the continent’s most populous country, comes top of the rankings in this respect, followed by Egypt and Morocco. However, the biggest hotel development project in Sub-Saharan Africa can be found in Equatorial Guinea, in the Grand Hotel Oyala Kempinski, which, when complete, will feature 451 rooms’.

He went on to harp on the fact that there some peculiar challenge with the coordination and driving of Nigerian tourism as all the various arm are scattered in six different ministries, while he noted the need for the Presidential Committee on Tourism (PCT) would need to be revived to steer a new part through coordination for the sector beleaguered with various challenges.

‘Tourism is scattered in many ministries namely: Immigration is in internal affairs; Aviation is under transport; National Park is in Environment; Waterways is in Transport; Culture is under Information, while the River Basin Authorities is under Water Resources.

‘PCT is to bring all together for interdependency meetings. UNWTO says culture can survive without tourism but tourism cannot survive without tourism. Discussion with Alabbar of Emaar, he said downtown Dubai has no soul so he has to add culture to it. So culture is key to the sustenance of tourism, but tourism is businesses’.

Then delving into a long argument, he brought up analysed and recounted the various frameworks several governments in Nigeria adopted in their various effort to transform tourism, their policies and the success and failures of some. In his conclusion, he established that the Obasanjo’s government was the best in all the efforts it made to transform tourism in Nigeria.

‘In the Vision 2010 under Abacha there was only one mention on page 179 about NTDC on training state. Declare Year 2005 as the Visit Nigeria Year in efforts to promote tourism… Set up planning committee immediately to actualise the declaration. Train and develop appropriate manpower tourism administration at the National Tourism Development Corporation (NTDC), States and Local government levels as well as for hotels and the hospitality industry”. That was all’.

On the situation analysis of what President Obasanjo did, he said that the government took a major step to improve the sector included placing the sector as one of the centre-piece for economic development. This is in line with global trend where most countries have turned to culture and tourism as part of their development agenda. It is in realization of this that that government took steps to review existing policy documents. That included the review of the existing culture policy document of 1988 and the introduction of a National Tourism Policy.

‘The policy sought the establishment of the Presidential Council on Tourism (PCT) which was chaired by the President; establishment of National Committee on Oral and Intangible Culture Heritage, chaired by the Honourable Minister of Culture and Tourism, and the introduction of stakeholders’ forum on National Council on Culture and Tourism.

‘The creation of that Council resulted in the introduction and hosting of the Abuja Carnival which started in 2005, formulation of a National Policy on Tourism, production of the Tourism Development Master Plan, formulation of a National Tourism Satellite Account (TSA), a review of the 1988 Culture Policy for Nigeria, the enlistment of Sukur World Heritage site at Adamawa and Osun Osogbo Sacred Groove into the World Heritage List (WHL), and the sustained efforts of some states in using tourism for wealth creation.

‘Tourism became the flagship for development and poverty reduction in Cross River, Kebbi, Osun and Kano which led to increased revenue generation and employment opportunity in those States.

‘The National Tourism Development Master-plan has poverty alleviation as its primary focus. The main objective of the Abuja Carnival is centered on promoting and marketing the rich and robust cultural heritage of Nigeria and her artistic expressions. The carnival is held annually to serve as essential tourism product.

In addition to those, that government went on to strengthen the nation’s foothold on the ecotourism sub-sector, resulting in the enactment of the laws for Endangered Species Act Cap 108LFN 1990; National Park Services Act 46 of 1999; Federal Environmental Protection Agency Act Cap 131LFN1990, and the ratification of the 1999 global code of ethics and similar culture and tourism related convention by government.

Mr Ikechi noted that the greatest challenge of that government was how to co-ordinate the efforts of states in a manner whereby the nation will derive economic and social benefits from culture and tourism. In this regard the National Orientation Agency comes to play a critical role in driving the sector by promoting the value of tourism, culture, propagation of Nigeria languages and arts, (including music, food and entertainment).

‘Yar’Adua’s government set out several objectives, strategies and targets through it Vision 202020, and for tourism, it included to make Nigeria become a major tourism destination in Africa and within the top 20 in the world, and to make tourism one of the five major income earners in Nigeria. To achieve those, the strategies were to revise, update and implement the recommendation of the Tourism Development Master Plan, develop clusters of resorts in five climatic regions, enhance human capacity and capabilities, promote and develop varied tourism products, review the existing tourism legislations to eliminate the overlapping functions in the industry, and develop pro-active safety and security strategy to enhance tourists safety.

‘Others were to immediately establish the Tourism Satellite Account as a way of measuring performance in the sector, post tourism officers to Nigerian embassies to facilitate visa processing procedures, professionalize and certify the arts of management in hospitality and tourism enterprises, strengthen Nigeria Tourism Development Corporation through better funding and capacity building of staff, strengthen Nigeria Tourism Development Corporation through better funding and capacity building, and lastly, to vigorously pursue the implementation of the Tourism Development Master Plan.

‘That government also targeted to achieve a 10 per cent annual growth rate in tourists’ arrival at Nigerian airports and land borders from 2010, to increase contribution of tourism to GDP from 2.5 per cent in 2007 to 5 per cent by 2013, increase the number of registered hotels in Nigeria from 1,700 in 2008 to 2,500 by 2013, promote the occupancy rates of hotels from 85 per cent in 2007 to 90 per cent in 2013, develop 5 tourism clusters for Nigeria by year 2013, develop a two-day entry visa processing procedure for Nigerian Embassies, train additional 10,000 tourism and hospitality workers by 2013, and to achieve a 10 per cent growth rate in film production by 2013.

‘But under Jonathan there was no visioning or target setting and no implementation of Masterplan or V202020. The Supreme Court judgment of July 2012 finally buried tourism in Nigeria. Today, government’s effort at tourism promotion is at its lowest ebb comparably to what it was in 1996 before the arrival of Aiyegboyin Alabi as DG NTDC. After Alabi, MK Bashir who was more effective at Nihotour in Kano was made DG but it didn’t end well. The arrival of Mrs Omotayo Omotosho gave life to tourism as the high point was Obasanjo reading the World Tourism Day message to Nigerians on September 27^th. It has never happened before her.

‘Obasanjo has been and is still the best thing that has ever happened to tourism in Nigeria. He created the ministry and put money in it. Set up PCT and constituted a masterplan committee involving the best brains in tourism, Dr. Onuoha, Matts DaSilva and Dr. Franklin Adejuwon. The masterplan which was a brilliant document was sabotaged by 2 assumptions and a fraudulent cluster allocation.

‘Assumption Errors: 1. That European Tourists are the only tourists that can float tourism in Nigeria. 2. That our image problem can be changed with a wave of presidential fist.

‘The recommendations and interdependencies were not really implemented. Before I make my recommendations, I want to review past policies, past Ministers, past DGs. When I started tourism in the 1990s there were effective agitators like Dr. Mubo Eniola, Tarzan, Jemi Alade, Mrs. Ezobi, NANTA, Mr. Ibru, Dr. Adejuwon, Tope Ogbeni Awe, Dr. Onuoha, Chief Amachree, Prince Oresajo and the fantastic Da Silva. Mr. Atigbi was not very visible. The Ministry was trade and commerce. Nigeria Tourism Board had an executive secretary.

‘I read that Obasanjo had given all the states N1million Naira to support Tourism when he was military president. When the decree setting up NTDC came into force and a DG was appointed, things changed’.

Concluding an insightful speech, among several solutions he proffered, he quoted Anita Mendieta of CNN who questioned, ‘why is the involvement of government really necessary, when in many ways Tourism is a relatively easy industry for anyone living in the destination to participate in? Advertising and marketing agencies know how to successfully promote and advertise. Travel agents know how to successfully sell holidays. Hoteliers know how to successfully run hotels. Restaurants know how to successfully serve fabulous local meals. And artisans know how to create curious and other keepsakes for tourists to buy and take home as gifts. Why is it necessary for government to play a part?’

Anchorting on that poser, Mr. Ikechi agreed with her that in tourism government is important, that there are two level of performance that needs consideration, that leadership of the tourism sector by government is required at two fundamental levels: Macro, which is the establishment of overall Tourism Strategy and Policies to ensure sustainable growth and development of the sector at social, economic and environmental levels, and alignment of sector efforts to the greater national/regional growth mandate; and the micro which focuses brand Leadership of the destination, ensuring creative, coordinated, competitive and compliant of Marketing, Promotion and Innovation of the destination.

‘Working in harmony, these two dimensions of Tourism leadership ensure that the vision of the destination is brought to life through its daily expressions, i.e. destination Brand promise, destination promotion, experience offerings, product and service delivery, policy implementation, infrastructure re- investment. To fulfill the MACRO needs, governments mobilize Departments of Tourism (often also referred to as Ministries) to take high level ownership and responsibility for defining the long-term direction and impact of the Tourism sector including policy, participation and governance.

‘It is these Departments (Ministries) of Tourism which are best placed to ensure that the sector Strategy for Tourism it directly aligned to and Supportive of, the greater national economic growth and development mandate and Strategy. Ultimately government must act as a central leadership force for the tourism sector-its industry, community, partners and principals – providing a central source for destination’. Examples of the importance of government in tourism were the presence of Dubai and South Africa Tourism Boards at the event.

In his summation, he posited that, ‘There is no ‘one size fits all’ approach’ to solving the matter on ground But for the country to achieve an annual growth rate of between 60% and 100% in the next ten years, he suggested focusing on four key approach or recommendations. Firstly, he said that the recommendations contained in the Vision 202020 should be revisited for implementation.

Among these include to support the use of film, visual arts, movies and music as a tool for tourism promotion from 2010; to develop a linkage between the promotion of Tourism and cultural events; to promote the development and conservation of museums and monuments as tourism products; that we should seek to host major sporting events and international conferences by 2010 and to develop clusters of resorts on the beaches along the coast lines among others.

Secondly, he also went to suggest that the recommendations of NATOP in 2014 should also be considered which includes revisiting issues of Nigeria Visa, which is cumbersome and expensive: make it easier to encourage tourists. Others are that Nigeria needs a National Carrier, development of unique tourism Products, government to focus and synergize with the creative industry; the need for tourism policy advocacy should be encouraged, wealth and employment Creation in tourism should be stimulated, the need for a well-defined Cultural tourism calendar, and tourism products quality standardization.

Thirdly, he proferred his own solution, which are what he termed ‘Team Africa Vision’, soliciting that TSA Implementation enables Governments to gauge the contribution that tourism makes to the economy. Tourism has evolved into a cluster of industries covering leisure and business demand and a range of goods and service supplier. So TSA provides measuring framework to see the macroeconomic and related impacts of tourism so it can be properly factored into good policymaking. United Nations, IMF and Associated Agencies in 2008 accepted TSA as the International standard to measure tourism macroeconomic contributions.

And finally, a re-focusing on domestic tourism which he captures with his project the Naija7Wonders. He said that according to a contribution on the UNWTO Agora page that ‘Whether it is to rest, discover new things, meet others or to have a unique experience, everyone has a right to tourism; in short, there are not, there should not be, and there cannot be two categories of human beings, those who can be tourists and those who can only receive them. These two activities are, in fact, but two sides of the same human activity; both of them are noble and respectable and everyone is entitled to them. Domestic tourism (DT), historically speaking, is in fact the first form of tourism that was practised and today it continues to account for the most part of this activity by far: it is estimated that out of the 4.8 billion tourist arrivals per year (2008 figure), 4 billion, or 83%, correspond to domestic tourism. Likewise, the UNWTO’s economists estimate that at the global level domestic tourism represents: 73% of total overnights; 74% of arrivals and 69% of overnights at hotels and 89% of arrivals and 75% of overnights in other (non-hotel) accommodations.

‘In contrast to international tourists, domestic tourists know the destination, its language, its customs, its laws, its climate, its cultural context. This has at least two consequences: As a general rule, domestic tourists are more demanding, especially when it comes to the quality of products, and also with regard to their consumer-protection rights. Out of the four main motivations of tourists (discovery, encountering others, experiencing something unique, resting) the last two are certainly more prominent among domestic tourists

They seek a very wide diversity of types of destinations and tourism activities, in other words, the range of product offerings should be as broad as possible. At the same time, domestic tourism is practiced more in a sedentary (staying in the same place) than a nomadic manner, the latter being more suited for more distant destinations. Second characteristic: Domestic destinations are nearer.

Visits are more frequent and there are more repeat stays, notably with family and especially in the rural region of provenance of many urban residents.

Land transport is predominantly used: 88% compared to 51% for international tourism. Third characteristic: as the destination is nearer and land transport is used more, the cost of trips is lower: Given that the barrier represented by trip cost is brought down, domestic travellers seek the best price-quality ratio, or often the lowest possible price, in all segments of the tourism value chain: accommodation, food services, tourism activities, shopping, etc…

They therefore seek alternative, non-hotel accommodations because, among other things, they are going to return several times to the destination and, while there, they prepare subsequent stays by informing themselves about the local accommodation offerings.

Last, but not least importantly, they stay for longer periods.

The combination of these three basic characteristics (knowledge and proximity of the destination, lower cost of transport) brings about an entire series of other consequences; five of them can be mentioned.

The social composition is broader, and domestic tourism involves all social strata, from the richest to persons with modest (but stable) incomes. Certain social categories are much more highly represented in domestic tourism than in international tourism: Families, Children and teenagers, Seniors, Disabled persons, Households with modest but stable incomes, This social diversity gives rise to a large diversity in the demand, in terms of accommodation and tourism products as well as activities and destinations, DT is less geographically concentrated and is relatively better distributed throughout the national territory, with a strong presence in the region of provenance of families, Unit expenditure is markedly lower than in international tourism, especially interregional tourism, but the overall volume of expenditure is markedly higher.