With over 40 years of innovations in the Nigeria tourism space, the founder of La Campagne Tropicana Beach Resort, Otunba Wanle Akinboboye, has continued to create newer opportunities for economic activities that have positive impact on the lives of locals while engaging youths in meaningful businesses.

Akinboboye noted that over the years, he has hoped that the government and private sector operators in Nigeria will understand the richness and economic power of tourism.

He noted that he doesn’t just rue the missed opportunities and keeps on lamenting, but rather he is a step ahead as he keeps demonstrating and showing the way forward and how best Nigeria can take ‘advantage of its comparative advantage’ to beat the world.

To show the possibility within the Nigeria space and the extent of the richness of its tourism potential, Akinboboye recently unfolded 52 products, which will introduce a product weekly to the Nigerian market.

Speaking on this initiative at public presentation of La Campagne Hills and Caves Resort, Itanla, in Ondo State, recently, Akinboboye noted “Our country Nigeria is blessed with great tourism attractions.

“Our focus is to restate that tourism is a market place. Tourism market, like any other market must have products. If you go to a market, you have to define what you are selling and for people to know and patronise you, you must have a product.

“The mistake we have made for so long is that we have focused on tourism without products. We have only been showcasing attractions. An attraction must be transformed to destination by surrounding that attraction with activities to make it viable. That is when that destination becomes a tourism product and that is the point when it can be sold.”

Poised at changing this narrative, he declared that; “The action plan is to create for the first year, 52 products that will then be polished and standardised for the next two years. During the two years of standardisation of these new products, we will start working on the next set.”

To sustain this initiative and make it national products, he disclosed that they will be recreated across the 774 local government areas of the country, including the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja.

This initiative, when implemented, will help transform the tourism space that has young entrepreneurs who can now have products to market in any part of the country latching onto Akinboboye’s vast experience spanning 40 years.

Subsequently, Akinboboye last week took a tentative step towards unveiling the first product, which he called Diaspora Nigeria Economic Recovery Programme (DNERP), an extensive programme, which goes beyond tourism border and is designed to revamp Nigeria’s ailing economy.

“This is because we believe the much neglected tourism sector is the lowest hanging fruit to explore and quickly reverse the prevailing economic downturn of the nation’s economy, as revenue from tourism goes directly to the people; the taxi drivers, tour guides, souvenirs traders, hotels and so on, whose impact on tourism can be felt directly and almost immediately.

‘‘DNERP offers Nigerians, lovers of Nigeria in Diaspora and their friends a template to contribute their own quota of resuscitating the economy by holidaying and investing in Nigeria, thus DNERP is in two distinct categories or packages, that is, Leisure and Business.”

To achieve this goal, Akinboboye disclosed that; “DNERP has potential for attracting foreign inflow into the country, is a great empowerment opportunity for those working and earning income from the tourism industry.

“The beauty of this is that it is a win-win for Nigerians at home and Nigerians in Diaspora. While it offers Nigerians in Diaspora and their friends an opportunity to contribute their own quota by visiting Nigeria for three days and two nights with a payment of $1000 apiece, which comes with a first class entertainment in form of dance, drama, poetry, authentic African music, cuisines and night clubbing.

“The money paid grows the GDP and locals also find an earning power.”

He further said; “Apart from the leisure and entertainment package, there is also the business plan where Diaspora Nigerians, who are interested in doing business at home, can become distributors and part owners in companies and businesses with good rate of returns on investment.

“Tourists are most likely to spend between two and four weeks, thereby resulting into additional expenditure of about $4,000 on travels, family and sundry expenses. A corresponding $2 billion injection into the Nigerian economy.”