Awomoyi Ayodeji
T&H operators need to embrace trade exhibition opportunities to drive market visibility — Flyzone
Principal Executive, Flyzone Tourism, Mr. Awomoyi Ayodeji, has advised travel, tourism and hospitality operators in the country to embrace opportunities presented by trade exhibitions to showcase their businesses, network, in order to drive business.
According to Mr Ayodeji, veritable platforms presented by trade exhibitions like the Akwaaba Travel Market, help to drive growth and market visibility for the industry operators in the country.
Speaking during an interactive session with tourism journalists on the sidelines of the recently-concluded 20th edition of the Akwaaba Travel Market at the Eko Hotels, Lagos, Mr Ayodeji maintained that growth and profit of the business stand to gain more when industry operators participate at travel exhibitions, adding that it presents an opportunity to network and market the business with other players in their industry, both locally and internationally.
“The first thing is that there is no business without connection, what I mean is meeting people one on one, When you have a product and the people do not know about the product, then am not sure you can do anything. That is why I
say that even a bad product that is marketed well will sell well more than a good product that is not well marketed.
“So.Akwaaba has helped travel agencies, airlines, hotels, tour operators to connect with one another. People might not know about all these airlines, hotels, but because they are here, they get to know each other. Akwaaba is like that platform that brings different.
“So in effect, industry operators need to embrace opportunities presented by trade exhibitions like this to grow their businesses, reach and returns. Because you need to connect, network with others and platforms like these ideal for that,” Ayodeji said.
The Flyzone boss who described his company as a middleman between travel agents and tour operators, on one hand, and the outbound tourist, on the other, said the firm basically handles visa documentations which eases the burden for all parties in the transaction.
“Flyzone connects travel agencies with countries and then their visas, stressing that applying for so many visas of other countries has to do with a lot of documentations where they have to follow so many rules.
“We have to arrange so many things for the tour operators to make sure they are fine, what flyzone does is that because we have relationship with some of these countries based on our algorithms, friendship and business relationship, so is easier for us to connect with these countries and their tourism boards than for a travel agent to connect directly.
“So I will say we are like the middleman between Nigerian travel agents and tourism boards of other countries of the world,” he stated.
On whether Flyzone is undercutting travel agents, Ayodeji explained that his firm is not taking over the job of travel agents because it only comes in ‘as middleman to connect countries tourism boards together with the local travel agents.’
“We are not taking over the travel agents business, what we are doing is business to business, the travel agents come to us and we go to the tourism boards and supply the travel agents the travel products they need”, he said. Going down memory lane, the Flyzone boss recounted his experience.
“I worked with Belview Airlines earlier on and then worked with software firm, Galileo and then Flyzone started 2018 when I resigned from Galileo. I worked with Belview Airlines from 2007 to 2011 and then with Galileo. I was installing softwares for all travel agencies in Nigeria, and this made me to travel a lot. With the relationship i have with them, when we presented Flyzone, it was easy to connect with all these travel agencies because they all know me.
‘We have about 8900 tavel agents all over Nigeria. We also have clients in Kenya, it is actually a franchise. What I mean by franchise is that the person is using our name for now and also in Dubai, the person is using our name and we are also getting commission,” Ayodeji said.
Continuing, Ayodeji disclosed that his company is working with the Nigerian government, even as he did not state further the nature of the engagement.
“Flyzone Tourism is working with government, but we want to start working with them in the long run on the issue of the visas.
“Visa handling is our niche, because if you don’t stay in your niche , what you have known for years, I don’t know of any other person, but what I have known all my life.
“I will prefer to stay in that niche, so that when anybody in Abuja, Lagos or anywhere say who can do this , they can easily say call Flyzone”.
“We cannot tell you what we cannot do and that is why we don’t do everything, if you come to us for a particular product we don’t have or don’t do, we will tell you immediately that we do not handle this,” he stressed.
