Participants at the FTAN 2024 AGM
T&H regulators elevate buck passing to new level
[By VICTOR NZE]
On a veritable platform set for them to project their programmes and window of opportunities created to grow the industry, and align them with the aspirations of the private sector operators, in line with the theme of the conference, which is; ‘The Role of Private Sector in the Development of Tourism in Nigeria,’ industry regulators opted for buck passing and role shaming.
The occasion was the 27th Conference/Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the Federation of Tourism Associations of Nigeria (FTAN) which held, last Tuesday, July 30 at the Rockview Royale Hotel, Abuja.
The event even had the High Commissioner of Botswana to Nigeria, Philda Nina Kereng, as Lead Speaker, as well as, the Cultural Counselor of the China Embassy, who also doubles as Director, China Cultural Centre in Nigeria, Mr. Li Xuda, along with his staff, in full attendance.
On separate fora offered them to enlighten, guide and address private sectors’ concerns, the public sector regulatory agencies of government present at the event chose instead to show off and exhibit their war chest of blames and self-glorification aimed at shaming private investors over perceived shortcomings.
The agencies through their heads or spokespersons rather opted to glorify the art of buck passing to new heights and preferred to shift the blames of industry failings to the business operators in the T&H sector for the seeming lack or dearth of infrastructure and capacity in the industry.
And the big question which remains hanging over Nigeria tourism is; how do you blame a gathering of industry players who have not only invested their hard-earned resources and commonwealth into rescuing and sustaining an industry long starved of intervention by the government and which suffers from chronic infrastructure deficit? And on such an occasion too.
Again, how do you hold industry operators who risked their lives amid the looming nationwide violent hunger protests, under the aegis of the #Endbadgovernance campaign, to attend their annual gathering, responsible for the deficiencies in the industry almost single-handed sustained by them?
In the minds of the private sector operators gathered at the conference, it only amounted to the regulators deliberately delivering a telling low blow on them by accusing them of lacking in requisite capacity and tools which ordinarily are supposed to have been supplied by the former in the almighty quest to reposition tourism as a major revenue earner for the country.
By choosing to rain on their parade, the regulatory bodies have only reaffirmed the long existing position among industry players that they are indeed insensitive to the groans of the industry, and by extension to, immune to the absence of a clearly defined policy framework guiding operations in the sector, which the latter group has clamoured for, and which, they posit, has been at the root of the challenges bedeviling progress in the sector in Nigeria.
The regulators took turns to berate and double down on the struggling but self-made private investors for their alleged failings in driving the tourism sector and further misplacing their priorities in the national quest to reposition the industry as the top revenue earner and image refining tool for the nation.
Representative of Mr John Enoh, the Minister of Sports, Mr Ken Egba fired the first salvo, when he brutally reminded the private industry operators that Nigeria’s tourism sector has the potential to rake in N1.3 trillion annually if effectively mined, adding further that the country’s sector is only ranked 27th in the world despite being valued at $US 43 billion and below countries such as Morocco, South Africa, and others.
According to Mr Egba, in his goodwill message, the country’s sports icons are ‘prospective tourism products for marketing,’ as he cited the case of the neglected MKO National Stadium in Abuja, which he said can be a MICE destination if utilized by the industry operators.
Following, was the Director General of the Nigeria Tourism Development Authority (NTDA), Chief Folusho Folorunsho-Coker, who when he mounted the podium to deliver his goodwill message, opined that the tourism agenda must change, as operators ‘must begin to do things in a different way. There has to be a sustainability agenda by operators which involves the desire to start programmes and finish it.’
Event’s co-compere, a travel industry operator and executive of the National Association of Nigerian Travel Agencies (NANTA), Ibiwari Uloma Kemabonta who had hoped the NTDA boss would rise to the sports ministry’s attacks with a resounding defence, only received a classic ‘fall hand’ response from the latter who proceeded to pass the buck and further carpet the investors.
Chief Coker in his submission at the gathering, after listing his perceived critics, declared that the sector in Nigeria must seek to create jobs, add value, engage in partnerships, upgrade infrastructure, especially those domiciled with the state governments, and also embrace technology digital reforms, which, as he put it, is the future of the industry and key to sustaining operations.
Rounding off his presentation, Coker advised FTAN members to ‘speak with one voice,’ as according to him, ‘there are many discordant sounds coming out of FTAN members which amounts to noise in the ears of the public sector regulators.’
By the way, Chief Coker heads the agency charged with the task of driving growth of Nigeria tourism, and by extension, mining, defining, refining, cataloguing and promoting the country’s assets and products.
The NTDA chief has been in office since 2017. He is not a fresh appointee of the President Bola Tinubu administration. He is currently the longest serving public office holder in the defunct Ministry of Arts, Culture and Information, and now the new Ministry of Arts, Culture and Creative Economy, in addition to the standalone Ministry of Tourism.
Reacting to the presentations by the public sector regulators, a United States-based private shuttle service operator in Austin, Texas, Mr Omale David (@omaleD), who is familiar with the Nigerian tourism industry happenings, succinctly described their various positions as effectively ‘raining on the business owners parade.’
According to Omale, they chose the wrong place and time to dish out their advice, since they did not provide anything to the private operators, it is out of place to put the blame on them, and by extension, pass the buck.
Now, for the records, the Sports Ministry has never organised a forum gathering tourism industry players to a roundtable on ways of promoting its assets and icons, neither has it till date advertised the Abuja National Stadium as an M.I.C.E destination for tour operators to plug-in and market.
Corroborating, another participant at the event, a media practitioner, picked holes in the presentations made by the public officers, as he tasked the sports ministry, first to do its homework before passing the buck to the tourism operators.
“I even think the real question here is, how far has the sports ministry gone in identifying these so-called assets of its and also packaging them for the tourism operators to now market. You see, it doesn’t work that way.
“You have to first package your products before asking others to help promote you. It’s up to Sports ministry to first identify and package its products which it sees as viable with potential and then approach the tourism investors and operators to help in marketing them and also decide on an agreeable revenue sharing formula as part of the agreement.
“The sports ministry has not even told us that the Abuja stadium is open for business outside football, so we can help them package it as one of our products under the MICE tourism. Again, does the ministry even know where our living or dead icons in football, athletics, boxing or any other sports live, or their family houses?
“These are the pertinent questions to be answered, and not just mount the stage and blame the tourism operators for your lapses.
“For the NTDA, it’s easy to conclude that his agency ever or even regularly conducts sessions and workshops for young entrepreneurs and start-up on how to mine the tourism industry by adapting new trends and technology in their businesses. But I don’t of any. So then why preach what you don’t practice,” according to Mr Emmanuel Okon, an independent journalist covering the FTAN AGM for the first time.
The fact remains that most loud voices on the T&H industry matters are uninformed or lack adequate knowledge on how the industry operates. This is so because while there exists tourism potential in every sector of the human or national endeavour, industry operators rely on agencies of government regulating activities in those sectors to intervene or interfere. Basically, you need a mining licence or permit to exploit another sector’s assets and resources, and sports is not excluded.
For instance, the South African Tourism (SAT), an agency similar to Nigeria’s NTDA, took the initiative of refurbishing and remodelling the famous Vilakazi Street in downtown Soweto, Johannesburg, where three Novel Laureates once lived, before offering it as a destination product to local and international tour firms to market. That destination remains a top draw for Gauteng Province Tourism.
“It is the sports ministry, whenever it is ready, that should put out a ‘Food is Ready’ signpost for tourism operators to troop in and do justice to the menu on offer. It’s not the other way round,” opined Mr Abiodun Olateju, a visitor to the conference.
Similarly during the panel discussion at the FTAN AGM, the Special Adviser on Special Duties to the Director General of the National Institute for Hospitality and Tourism (NIHOTOUR), Mr Philip Maga, blamed private sector operators over their ignorance in exploring and accessing various financing windows available for SMEs and micro SMEs in the tourism sector, saying such opportunities exist everywhere.
Not to be left out in the blame feast, the Special Adviser on Special Duties to the NTDA boss, Mr Friday Anumba called for a single window to regulate operations in the sector, as he further sought regular stakeholder engagements and inclusive administration of policies in the industry.
However, responding to the attacks, President of one of the affiliate bodies in FTAN, who craved anonymity, questioned the position taken by the regulator’s spokesperson, as he wondered the rationale for the blame game when, according to him, the institute has never organised a forum for industry players to avail them of any such funding opportunities for them to plug in to.
According to her, in view of the stringent requirements and conditions demanded of loan seekers, it has become an option least exploited by industry players in the country.
This is even as she opined that an agency in the Ministry of Tourism can wade in by standing as guarantor for these loans from reputable financial institutions at home and abroad, instead of shifting and passing the buck onto the private operators who are more pre-occupied with daily navigating government’s multiple levies and taxes on their businesses and meeting the heavily-mounting overheads of their businesses.
“I recall just few years back when the immediate past Director General of the NCAC, Otunba Runsewe reached an agreement with the Bank of Industry to guarantee soft credit facilities to artisans, craftsmen, and other MSMEs in order to grow their businesses. What has the agencies in the tourism sector done so far to that end?
“They (public sector regulators) just want to talk and be seen to be talking. These tourism agencies can easily approach that same BOI, CBN or even the AfDB to secure and guarantee short or mid-term soft loans for industry businesses and save us from the hassles of protocols and stringent procedures in accessing credit facilities to run our businesses,” she stressed.
Also remarking, the FTAN President, Mr Onung disagreed with the NTDA boss on the issue of speaking with one voice, as he instead told the gathering that there needs to be a concerted effort on the part of the public sector regulators to harmonise their policy frameworks and guidelines of operations with a view to addressing the constant harassments on private operators who are confronted with multiple regulators enforcing duplicitous laws.
“From what is happening to our businesses now, it appears this is no longer our fight. We may now need to get the agencies to sit and resolve the issue of regulations at that level. This is probably no longer our fight. Let them resolve it their own way.
“My worry is that with the new autonomy had over to the local government areas in the country, these incursions and other arbitrary regulations already before us may worsen. So we need the public sector operators to resolve this problem among themselves,” Onung said.
It is fast approaching three years since the promised post-COVID-19 palliates reeled out by the immediate past administration through the Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo’s office and that intervention has become a collective mirage for the sectors’ operators.
Till date, nobody or agency at the Ministry of Tourism can account for when or where it is. The NTDA which should expectedly be at the forefront of moves to secure it for the industry operators is lagging.
Meanwhile, the aviation sector is on its second and third tranche of disbursement, the transport sector is exploring means of doing its second round. All these sectors were heavily disrupted by the pandemic, but till date, the tourism operators have been left to their fate.
“We the private sector operators do everything with our own resources. We beautify our environment, provide our business with our own source of electricity, we provide value to our sector, but we are over-taxed.
“The public sector regulators are strangulating us with numerous and outrageous levies and taxes. And it’s too much to bear. For any significant contribution to come from us, government has to to attend to our needs.
“We are making an appeal to the appropriate agencies and bodies in government to please release our palliatives and other interventions and stimulus made available by the federal government during the COVID-19 era to sustain or help businesses recover from the losses,” Mrs Funmi Kazeem, President of the Hotel Owners Forum Abuja (HOFA) defined the industry operators pains.
Then again, that Coker’s ‘Don’t worry, I’ll leave in February’ untimely assurance should calm all struggling and bankruptcy-threatened business nerves. Right?
