Ikechi Uko has carved a niche for himself in the travel and tourism industry in West Africa and Africa in general. He has built the Akwaaba African Travel Market from scratch to an enviable height beyond every expectations, he’s also making a mark with Accra Weizo which is in its second year.
In this interview with Franklin Ihejirika, Uko speaks about the Nigerian tourism industry prospects and challenges, the recently concluded Accra Weizo and the up coming Akwaaba in Lagos, including what the authorities should do to reposition travel and tourism in Nigeria.
Excerpts
This is your second year of organising Accra Weizo, what is your assessment of Weizo so far
The fact that weizo happened this year is a success, remember this year is the year where you have out of eights flights in a day, you only had two flights, so that wiped off about 55 percent of people coming from other places, so the fact that weizo happened this year is a success and for me is aligning properly with our business plan and our vision. You know the ingredient we want to established, we want to grow an international travel trade event in Ghana and is already international from the day one. So I think we are not doing badly in the vision, so we hope to deliver better events in the coming years. Considering the fact that these guys own airlines, all the aviation people came late, that is the biggest irony, the four airlines involved in the panel who were coming outside Ghana arrived late, only the Ghanaian airline was on ground, only AWA was ground every other airline that supposed to participate at the aviation session arrived late. That tells you why we need that kind of event, why are we having massive challenges in aviation industry in West Africa, that even the guys that run the airline all came in late. That tells you there is something that is not visible to the eyes happening and we need to interrogate it further.
Tourism is dead in Nigeria, what can we do to revive tourism in Nigeria?
The private sector people are doing their thing, at least am doing my thing, the hoteliers are doing their own thing, the transporters are doing their own thing, but on the policy level that supposed to drive everybody and give us the pathway, that is where we had problems in the last two to three years. So Nigerian problem is at that policy level, at the government end of tourism, that is where we have problem, the direction that will guide everybody right.
Do we have tourism statistics and figures
We do not actually have Tourism Satellite Account, (TSA) in place, so that does not help us. Two, we do not have government agencies in place that is interested in gathering these figures, the nearest we have is that the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, (NCAA) has some, Federal Inland Revenue had some, then Bureau of Statistics publishes once in a while some information on travel and tourism , so we do not really have an information gathering authority in tourism.
Can the private sector achieve anything in tourism since government seems not interested?
Tourism is not just a high priority business in the private sector, so why would they be doing it because somebody needs to make profit from something, I can not see that happen outside what some of us are doing.
What about the tourism and culture submit in Abuja where issues were discussed and committees set up, do you think any thing can be achieved from that or is one those fruitless attempts in the past
I do not know if is one of those things in the past, but the committee the minister set up is the same people who have been running tourism in Abuja in the last four years. Tomi Akingbogun has been the president of the Federation of Tourism Association of Nigeria, (FTAN) for the past four years working sometimes with the ministry and sometimes without the ministry, George has been a director in the ministry in the last four years, Paul Adalikwu was a director in the ministry in the last administration. I think they are going to do more of what they know, but they have not brought out their reports, so we cannot know if there is any thing different, but these are people who have been in the system in the last four years. Maybe we can say then that the minister wasn’t that good so let’s see if working with a new minister might make a change
What do you think from the private sector angle that government can do to support the private sector players like you ?
From the business I do, the government influence is not cash, they create environment that enable me to thrive. As at now those environment are not being created as even where the environment were before, the people in government have killed it, so am expectant that things will change.
Way forward for tourism in the face of the dwindling oil prices
Government has to get serious with tourism, there were situations in Kenya where tourism was going down travel advice were going against them, people were cancelling contracts, but they changed minister and in two months, things changed, as at yesterday, a Polish airline has started doing tours to Kenya, cruises are back to Mombasa, new flight are coming into Kenya, new contracts are coming in, is just a change of minister, so new approach, fresh face, new ideas and things changed. I believe is not rocket science but probably a new approach to what we have been doing can change things.
Do you think there is the need to bring out the tourism ministry from the ministry of Information
Tourism needs presidential attention to thrive in Nigeria. We have seen Obasanjo before, we have seen Jonathan, we have seen Buhari, I think we need a ministry. Even in the worst scenarios where these people were ineffective, is a little bit better than what we have today, so we need a separate ministry of tourism .
Promotion of Nigeria as a tourist destination in recent years is non-existent, has the tourism agencies done well in recent years in promoting Nigeria?
I think the agencies, know they have not done very well, they have not met people’s expectations. They themselves can tell you that the have problems, challenges that prevented them from performing which means they have not performed. Probably the have their reasons which the often tell us is lack of funds, lack of this, lack of that, that is why they have not performed. So there is admittance of non-performance, but why they are not performing, I as an outsider do not know, but they say is lack of fund, but I don’t know, I can’t verify that.
Are the right policies in place?
One or two ministers have attempted some things in the past. In the past few years I have seen that the policy direction of the ministry to the parastals is quite different from the expectations of the practitioners. I think is the best way to describe the scenario, is different from the expectations of the practitioners. Probably, what we want is different from what government want to offer or what the government wants to do.
Weizo is gone and now we are waiting for Akwaaba, what are we expecting this year?
Akwaaba, we are fixed with the exhibition, everybody knows us at the exhibition, so the path we want to grow this year is the conference part of it, we are bringing the African tourism and travel conference, so that is the new thing we will be doing, a grand event where people can share knowledge and have benefits, that is for Monday, October 31 at Eko Hotels and Suites.
The success of Akwaaba African Travel Market so far?
For the fact that we were able to do Akwaaba in 2014, I think that is the greatest success, I think, I have achieved. The Ebola year was the year in which everything that could go went wrong and for the fact that we are able to pull through with Akwaaba is one of the greatest things I have done. I had 80 percent cancellations and we still pull through, to me that was massive
