Ola Wright is the Chief Executive Officer of West Africa Tourism (WAT) a destination marketing company, which is devoted to developing, promoting and marketing the
tourism industry of West Africa.
It has over the years engaged with other countries across the world with the same focus and has a flagship travel platform, West Africa Tourism Ariya Expo, which holds annually in
London and is a celebration of West Africa tourism.
Having been around for years and watched development within the Nigeria travel industry, Wright who has worked with other West Africa
countries assiduously in the promotion of their tourism, is not happy that Nigeria, her beloved
country, is lagging behind in this respect, as she laments that Nigeria has not yet woken to tourism despite the huge potential.
“Nigeria has not woken up to tourism and there is a big potential but it is a big shame because tourism is wasting in this country. Our government needs to wake up”, she insists, explaining that “part of the problem with the industry is that many people, including the
government, don’t have a full understanding of what tourism really is about.
Hence, they neglect it and feel that there is no tourism in Nigeria whereas it exists in abundance all around. “But people don’t see
tourism in that light but do you know that is what tourism is.
Every single department or industry is actually tied to tourism. Oil and gas is tied to tourism and you can’t have it thrive without tourism because you need accommodation and transportation to explore it and these are all parts of tourism,” says Wright. She adds, “Nigeria is a peculiar country and has peculiar problems as well. We have not quite
gotten our tourism programme together,” even as she takes a swipe at people who believe that the federal government scrapping of the tourism ministry and merging it with the
Ministry of Information and Culture is a death knell for the industry.
She backs the federal government action as right, insisting that the ministry before it was scrapped never truly justified its existence.
According to her, the scrapping of the ministry will serve as a wake up for the industry. “I know that there is a big talk about there is no more ministry for tourism and a lot of people are upset about that and talking about it.
But I’m just wondering if we were going to be truthful and honest to ourselves, what has the ministry of tourism done in Nigeria over the
years? “I am actually all for them scrapping it and Nigeria will not be the first country to do so. United Kingdom does not have a tourism
ministry.
Tourism is under information and UK is a big tourism country. “What I have seen all over the years is that the ministry of tourism is always fighting its agencies. There is actually nothing wrong in scrapping the ministry of tourism, it would probably call the industry to order,” she says.
While decrying the fact that the Nigeria government has all the years shied away from participating in her yearly travel expo, however, she says that will not stop her from promoting
and marketing the country. The fact that some state governments do take active part in the programme, she says, is enough reason for her to continue to support her father’s land.
Wright looks to the future with hope believing that the new administration at the federal level would act differently from the part ones especially with regard to tourism.
She advises the government to appoint professionals as heads parastatals under culture and tourism rather than politicians. “Nigeria put politics into everything that they do. Even though you have appointed the ministers based on politics then obviously for the agencies you should put people who are from that industry and are professionals who understand the industry and they can run with it much better.”
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