Last week was the maiden edition of Nigeria Travel Week, the first in Nigeria’s history, and I am very proud to be part of the supporters and/or media partners. In case you have not watched it, I did a video explaining all to expect from the Nigeria Travel Week, CLICK HERE to watch it.
Avantgarde Tours & Afro Tourism, partnered together on this project to bring it to life! And I am going to be sharing my experiences for each day I was present at the event.
Day 1- The Tourism Cup
The tourism cup was a golf tournament which held at Ikoyi club. In the light of sharing my personal experience, you should know that apart from the fact that I had fun this particular day, because of this fun Ajalas (travel junkie) I met, I did not get to the event early enough.
Guess why? I was given two posters for the event, the old one read 2:00 PM, while the new one read 8:00AM. So, a day before the event, I decided to confirm the time by checking the poster, just so I could get myself prepared mentally for the next day and I saw 2:00PM on the poster, forgetting that there were two of them, and that was the time I rolled with. On getting to the event, most of the golfers had played, but I watched a few people play and I also witnessed the awards which started around past 6:00 PM.
Day 2 – Travel Round Table
Day two was awesome! There were local and international speakers who shared so much on sustainable tourism from their wealth of experience. And all of the speakers were Africans off course…(we are being our brother’s keeper). Although, imagine if all African countries had a boom in the economy through tourism, do you think Africa’s story will remain the same? We are coming together to help shape the tourism industry and change Africa’s narrative.
By the way, during one of the sessions, someone mentioned that Nigeria should have a separate Ministry of Tourism, instead of merging it up with some other unrelated business, and I totally agree. We need to pay more attention to tourism in Nigeria. It should be given its deserved priority.
Day 3: – The Village Square
Although, I didn’t take enough pictures of the event, you would have a better view of the event in the video (it will be out this weekend). And as anticipated in my previous video ( CLICK HERE), I cannot over emphasize how much I enjoyed this event.
I told people that this event reminded me of the safari experience in Dubai where you seat down on the floor in the desert and watch the ladies performing to their music, only that ours was much richer!
It took place at Freedom Park, we sat on the floor, we ate Amala, Ofada rice, Jollof rice, Garden egg, and we drank palm wine. We also watched a lot of performances (drama & bata dance) – most of which exemplified our culture.
It was literally fun! At the end, everyone just started dancing for over 40 minutes, do not worry, the video will be out soon, so you can see what I’m saying. And above are pictures of me with some foreign delegates from South Africa.
Day 4- The Hangout & The Balearica Awards
I was not present for the hangout at Lekki Conservation Centre because I could not make it, but the Balearica Awards was lit!
Just so you know, the name “Balearica” was adopted from Nigeria’s National Bird, which promotes tourism. I got to the event by exactly 7.00PM as written on the poster, and I met the green carpet. The event was to award those voted for as the winners of each categories, which was accredited by Phillips Consulting.
The crazy thing about last week was having to go to the Island all through the week, because all the events were taking place there, but thankfully, the traffic hurdle wasn’t much.
BY THE WAY, JUMAI BLACK FRIDAY ENDS SOON! DO NOT MISS OUT.
Thanks for reading, the video will be out this weekend.
SHARE IT! LOVE IT! COMMENT!
“Tourism is the biggest industry in the world – Martin Parr”
Leave a Reply