The tourism and transportation industries worldwide have been most affected by the Corona Virus (COVID-19) pandemic that has ravaged the world for close to two years now.
The pandemic forced every country to shut her borders against visitors in a manner never seen before. Travel and tourism businesses shrunk by about 80 per cent leading to the collapse of tourism business and other ancillary services that depend on movement of people to survive.
The loss suffered by the global tourism industry is put in the region of $4 trillion.
Currently, the world is in a period of recovery even though the pandemic has not totally abated. The African continent and the rest of the world are currently trying to fashion out ways for the rapid recovery process for the industry.
There is a unanimity, however, among African experts in the tourism and transportation industry that the recently signed African Continental Free Trade Area AfCFTA), an initiative of the African Union (AU), will play a key role in the process.
It is in the light of this that the 2021 edition of the National Tourism and Transport Summit (NTTS) holding in Abuja from the 15 to the 16th of November will focus on the theme: Leveraging the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Initiative.
The NTTS and Expo is the foremost event in the two sectors that brings together, and connect tourism and transportation. It is anchored by the Institute for Tourism Professionals of Nigeria (ITPN) in collaboration with the Ministry of Transportation and its agencies, Federal Ministry of Information, Culture and its parastatals, Federal Ministry of Aviation and parastatals with private stakeholders across the transportation, tourism and hospitality value chain.
According the Chairman Organising Committee of NTTS and the President, Institute for Tourism Professionals, Chief Abiodun Odusanwo, the 2021 NTTS, “seeks to draw wider participations and target audience in line with the regional integration efforts of the African Union (AU) and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). It is a two-day summit and expo that will feature great speaker
addressing topical issues and opportunities for both public and private sector in Africa’s tourism and transportation industry.
“It is a gathering of senior executives, decision makers, associations that offer you a unique opportunity to meet international regulatory and [policy setting bodies, embassies, regulators, decision makers, influencers, specifiers, employers and investors to showcase and market services and products to more than 1000 relevant and highly engaged delegates from aviation, maritime, railways, airport operators, road transportation organizations, including those in the tourism and hospitality value chain.”
Talking about the nexus between the AfCFTA and tourism, the agreement opens up the continent with its 1.3 billion populations to business. With the current difficulties and restrictions on visits to destinations all over the world, the free movement of African citizens and businesses in Africa as guaranteed by AfCFTA will help mitigate the impact on jobs and businesses in some destinations losses at destinations in Africa. It opens up the continent to huge tourist traffic.
