Travellers’ Awards has unveiled the four Personality Awards for the year 2021.

The Awards were selected by the elite members of the Tourism Community and approved by the Publishers of Atqnews.com and Travellers Magazine.

Chief Allen Onyema, the Chairman of Air Peace was chosen as the Travel Personality of the Year 2021 due to his consistent performance in the Aviation Business. His airline, Air Peace is the first airline to bring a brand New commercial passenger plane to Nigeria since Arik Air and Virgin Nigeria did that more than 10 years ago. 5 brand new Embraer E195 E2 Aircraft were received by Air Peace for operations in Nigeria.

His airline had been evacuating stranded Nigerians in many countries and became the official carrier of the Super Eagles. In 2021 he became the positive force for Aviation and Travel Business in Nigeria. His Pan Nigeria messages has endeared him to Nigerians as a unifying leader. No wonder Nigerians rallied to support him in the Impasse with UAE.

Pharmacist Uzamat Akinbile-Yusuf, the Lagos State Commissioner of Tourism was also chosen by members of the Tourism 100 Club and the Publishers of Travellers Magazine as the Best Tourism Commissioner in Nigeria in 2021.

Almost all the nominations by the members went for the Lagos Commissioner who engaged stakeholders and initiated trainings for Tour Operators and Creatives based in Lagos.

Lagos State has become the benchmark for most states in tourism development. Lagos State launched its Tourism Masterplan in 2021. That is an unprecedented feat by any state in Nigeria.

She initiated the Community Based Tourism, CBT projects in the 5 divisions of Lagos.

Lagos launched a Trust Fund that provides loans and grants to tourism practitioners based in Lagos.

Alhaji Nura Kangiwa, DG NIHOTOUR

This coming just as the Director General of NIHOTOUR, Nura Kangiwa emerged Tourism CEO of the Year 2021.

He was a breath of fresh air
in the tourism arena in 2021 with events and trainings all over the country.

He pushed the hand of government effectively in 2021.

He identified the absence of government in private sector environment. He partnered with Tourism Associations, set up the Sector Skill Council, opened up new campuses of the Tourism Training institute and anchored the World Tourism Day(WTD) 2021.

The WTD restored the role of government in Nigeria for the international event initiated by a Nigerian Chief Atigbi.

While the Tourism Man of the Year is the President of Federation of Tourism Association of Nigeria, FTAN, Nkereuwem Onung.

His election as the FTAN President was a unifying tonic needed by the Tourism Community riven by dichotomy and in-fighting.

His election was almost unanimous as all the leading Tourism Associations backed his election.

He has since set out inaugurating Zonal Chapters and encouraging strong member associations.

His mantra of “Strong Associations Make Strong Federation ” seems to resonate with members.

He has brought together a team that promises to lift tourism a notch higher in the new year.

The Awards will be presented on March 11th 2022 at Abuja Jabamah.

Travellers Award was instituted in 1996 by the Publishers of Travellers Magazine and Atqnews.com with the Theme: “Promoting Excellence in Travels”.

Earlier in the week the Organisers announced
IbomAir as the Best Airline in Nigeria.

The airline defeated 4 other Nigerian airlines, Air Peace, Green Africa, Arik Air and Dana Air for the Award.

This is based on the
ranking of Nigerian airlines using the following parameters:
Average Age of Aircraft , Schedule Integrity, Spread of Services, Customer Care, Inflight Services and Total Number of Flights done in 2021.

Independent research done by Publishers of Atqnews.com using statistics released by Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority and other sources.

Nigerian airlines were ranked from 1 to 10 on all parameters and their scores totalled up. The airline with lowest scores were ranked as leaders.

About 65 to 70 aircraft by 10 airlines carried over 12 Million passengers to over 20 active airports in Nigeria.

Air Peace won the Award of the Best Nigerian International Airline of the year

Ibom Air came out tops with the lowest score of 12 having topped the chart in four of the parameters. It only did badly in the spread as it flies to only 6 destinations, so it ranked 8 out of the 10 airlines that were profiled. It also had the second highest number of flights done despite having only 7 aircraft and was flying to only 6 destinations. It had done more flights than airlines that had more planes and flew to more destinations.