By Dipo Olowookere
In what seems like a bright prospect for domestic tourism in Nigeria, the sector is expected to contribute N3.63 billion to the country’s GDP by the end of 2018.
The number of international arrivals in the country and employment generated by the sector is expected to grow by 1.5 percent and 3.4 percent respectively by end of the year, representing 1.8 million international arrivals and 3.4 million jobs.
Omolara Adagunodo, managing director of Jumia Travel Nigeria stated this while overviewing the content of the 2018 Nigeria hospitality report at a press conference in Lagos.
The report also provided insight on the two main components of domestic travel: leisure and business travel, and both grew at 2.7 percent and 2.8 percent, that is 1.98 billion and 1.92 billion contributions respectively to domestic earnings in 2017.
Tourism expert and founder of Akwaaba Travel Market, Ikechi Uko who commended the effort of Jumia Travel in compiling the report said: “the data and figures featured in the report can massively expand the footprint of the Nigeria travel industry and take it to the next level.”
While announcing that Nigeria will soon subscribe to the Tourism Satellite Account (TSA), which is the internationally recognised standard statistical framework for the economic measurement of tourism, Uko urged stakeholders within the sector to support and rely on the data in reports such as Jumia Travel’s.
Uko also commented on one of the challenges plaguing the sector, as identified in the report, such as insufficient flights.
He said: “the number of flight pairs in Nigeria is very low. Lagos and Abuja are already saturated because almost all airlines want to fly there. As such, we need more flights to cut across the country because the travel industry cannot grow without a functional air transport network.”
The Nigeria Hospitality Report from the stables of Jumia Travel is fast becoming a primary source of data for the experts and stakeholders in the travel industry as it offers a profound and holistic insight into the industry that accounted for 1.9 percent of total GDP as a direct contribution, and 5.1 percent as a total contribution to GDP.
In monetary terms, the sector contributed approximately N2.3 billion to the GDP as a direct contribution and N6.2 billion as a total contribution to the GDP.
