The lockdown occasioned by the outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic which resulted in a prolonged travel imbroglio between Abuja and Dubai appeared to have been the tonic players in the travel and tour sub-sector needed to venture into new territories. SULEIMAN IDRIS reports.
Nigerians love Dubai for many reasons, ranging from shopping to tourism, medical tourism, business, properties and estate development, just name it. Nobody hitherto could have imagined that both countries could lock horns in a prolonged travel entanglement in which neither was prepared to shift ground until recently whilst the drama lasted with no direct flights between the two nations. Members of the National Association of Nigeria Travel Agencies (NANTA) put on their thinking caps and decided to explore travel and leisure opportunities on the African continent. Their discovery of Egypt as an alternative to the UAE has now elicited tremendous changes in both countries’ diplomatic relationships.
At an interactive meeting among the trio of NANTA executives led by its president, the managing director of Topaz Travels and Tour Limited, Susan Akporiaye, the Egyptian ambassador to Nigeria, Ihab Moustafa Awad, and the management of Egypt Air, led by the airline’s country manager, Muharram Abdel Rahman, at the North African country’s national carrier corporate headquarters on Victoria Island, Lagos, opportunities that abound in both nations for travel and leisure, medical tourism, agriculture and technical collaborations as well businesses ready to be tap into were articulated.
Muharram Abdel Rahman said Egypt Air, with over 90 years in aviation and one of the safest in the world, being the second oldest foreign carrier in Nigeria, has helped to cement the relationship between the countries. He said, “Our meeting today is meant to strengthen the relationship between Egypt and Nigeria in the aviation and tourism field. The two countries are considered two most important hubs on the African continent.’’
For the NANTA president, Susan, “The Covid-19 happens and enables everybody all over the world to start looking inward, new thinking, realising the fact that Covid-19 has come to stay. So, we cannot end our lives or activities because of that, we had to find a way to keep growing, to keep interacting and find ways of keeping businesses going, borders were closed, Covid-19 made it possible for African leaders to take another look at our borders in the areas of trading and doing businesses.”
According to her, “While diplomats were talking about diplomacy and the likes, we realised that nobody is talking about tourism, we then said no, we can’t keep quiet, and tourism is our life. We decided to push the agenda from the angle of travel and tourism. And during that period, where is the biggest market for us in Nigeria, which is Dubai? We all know the stories that have transpired between Nigeria and Dubai, even till now. We asked why we were going to Dubai. The things we go to Dubai to shop, can we get them in Africa? We are pushing the Africa agenda.”
That she said was how they discovered Egypt.
“I found out that they have everything that we need as Nigerian in terms of vacation, luxury, businesses and industry, it is there in Egypt and basically what most of us Nigerians go to Dubai to do is right there in Egypt; how come we didn’t see it. We never saw it. We now promised to push this agenda. We are going to open up more destinations for our members to sell. When Dubai was closed to us, we went on a campaign to sell other destinations and since that campaign began, Egypt has been the best next destination as we in NANTA have been busy selling the country as a destination because we want to promote Africa to African among ourselves. We found out that there is a very big clothing and textile industry in Egypt and that is one of the big things and businesses in Nigeria and is right there in Egypt close to us. The Egypt air flights have been full and the stories have been very positive because as the travellers and tourists come back, they are planning the next trip.”
However, selling the country is without bottlenecks as she said, “One of the bottlenecks we always experience is the issue of visa processing, desiring a more friendly process just not to discourage people and make them easily forget Egypt because Dubai has opened up for Nigerians again.”
Tasking the ambassador, the NANTA contingent also desired a Memoranda of Understand with Egypt Air for more General Sales Agents spread across Nigeria’s geo-political region among its qualified members.
An enthusiastic Ambassador Moustafa Awad acknowledged the strength of Nigeria and the impacts the visit of Nigerians tourists has on his country’s economy, affirming that all was not lost on him just as he said the two countries were waiting to have partnership that can make these things work.
He said, “Firstly, my job here is to send that message that Nigeria is a big country with over 200 million people and those who have created any negative impression about Nigeria at any point in time is less than .0001%. The bigger population are very good people. I can tell wholeheartedly that the majority of people in Egypt have a lot of respect for the people of Nigeria. Notwithstanding your football, football is a very powerful tool that brings people together and advertises the country. Since I was younger, I watched Jay Jay Okocha, Kanu Nwankwo, Rashidi Yekini, Emmanuel Amuneke; these guys are household names in Egypt in the ‘90s, they are not people that the Egyptians held about just passing, but guys they related with physically and idolised. I must say that if you want to start with what you are saying today, some of these guys who are still around can be your icons or ambassadors.
“We need to organise a visit for members of NANTA to Egypt. We organise trips for them where they are going to meet their counterparts and many people who are going to facilitate the success of your activities in Egypt. Hopefully being accompanied by one this soccer figures I mentioned earlier. This is something we need to work together and organise with the help of the embassy with a very good and solid programme of leisure and business and this is something I am sure EgyptAir can help with. That could be the entry point of addressing many of the issues we have all pointed out today. We can do better including Nollywoods and Nigerian music icons because these guys are all household names in Egypt. If we can organise that I assure you it is something that will take us to a different new level.”
On how his embassy plans to address the visa challenges, he said, “The Nigeria embassy in Egypt works twice a week and many travellers have missed their exhibitions or their intended meetings here by missing the dates of those meetings on Egypt Air because they couldn’t get the visa. So, it is actually on both sides. I am working with my brother, the ambassador of Nigeria in Egypt, to try and address these challenges both here and there. This is something that as an embassy we have taken up very seriously with the authorities.”
Talking on the issue of capacity, he said, “Previously our capacity here was 30 to 35 visas a day, as both countries now discovered the potentials in the two countries whether for travel or business purposes, the visa numbers has jumped from 30 to 300 a day.
“It is the same person sitting doing the same job receiving the same requests whether here or in Egypt. So, we have challenges trying to communicate this in order to improve the relationship between both countries. The one person or the team that processes 30 visas cannot be the same thing as the ones that process 300 visas. We are not there yet, the communication has not yielded the desired result yet but we are working on it and I have a lot of hope that we can actually find a solution to it and there have been a couple of meetings that took place in the ministry of foreign affairs with the title, visas for Nigerians.”
The envoy revealed that, “Egypt has started to introduce an e-visa, that is going to resolve a lot of issue, because it is all electronic base, the data and passport information, upload of document if you are going for medicals or leisure or exhibition or business, you have a letter of invitation or a hotel reservation or an air ticket or a medical report, all of these is uploaded electronically and be verify electronically by someone very far away, he or she doesn’t have to be at the embassy in Egypt or Abuja, it will save time for Nigerians.
“This e-visa is being rolled out gradually after its introduction last year and is being introduced to Europe, the US and parts of the Arab World because the e-visa is not only for foreigners, but also for Egyptians to be able to process their own documents as well. They chose where Egypt has bigger communities; my understanding is that in Africa, a big country like Nigeria will be next. I am going to try to really expedite that.”
