As part of her advocacy to improve travel experience and grow domestic tourism, the Minister of Tourism, Mrs. Lola Ade-John, recently engaged her counterpart in Aviation & Aerospace Development, Barrister Festus Keyamo, to discuss the role of aviation in developing travel and tourism in Nigeria.

Both ministers have a mandate from the President to improve travellers experience in Nigeria; hence, the meeting.

Worthy of note is that globally tourism flies on the wings of aviation and Nigeria should not be different. In view of this, leading tourism destinations in Africa have developed aviation infrastructure.

As the Minister of Aviation is revamping the aviation ecosystem, it is expected that tourism will be the major beneficiary of the improvements, therefore, meetings involving stakeholders in aviation and tourism have been planned to interconnect the important pillars of national development.

Tourism in Nigeria has not done very well but the renewed advocacy by the Minister of Tourism seems to be opening new vistas. Vista

Recently Ade-John worked with the Minister of Interior, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, and the Comptroller General of Nigerian Immigration Service, Kemi Nandap, to improve the online visa fees for African Travellers leading to more than 50 per cent reduction in visa fees.

This has been hailed as a major milestone for travel to Nigeria. She also had worked out an arrangement with the Minister of Transport to involve Nigerian Tour Operators on the utilisation of the rails and road infrastructure for domestic tourism.

Working on the Presidential mandate to improve passenger experience, she acknowledged the role of aviation in achieving this goal.

Ade-John said: “We need aviation to achieve our goals. We want domestic airlines to partner our Tour Operators to develop affordable packages. We want foreign airlines to play Nigerian destination videos when they are arriving Nigeria. We will be happy to see airlines support travel and tourism events in Nigeria. There is a lot of support we will be asking from aviation to lift tourism in Nigeria.”

Recently the tourism Minister had been around the country in her advocacy, listening to stakeholders. She has decided to engage with her colleague Ministers to help address the identified issues. She had attended every major private sector event in Nigeria. That is unprecedented in Nigeria tourism. She has attended a number of major private sector events in Nigeria.

Ade-John is billed to speak to young tourism professionals at the biggest travel and tourism expo in West Africa, Akwaaba African Travel Market on Tuesday the 24th of September.

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