Dubai Tourism Pleased with Reception at Lagos Roadshow
Dubai Tourism earlier this month held a roadshow in Lagos to further establish its hospitality brands in the minds of Nigerians as it seeks to be the preferred destination for Nigerians travelling out of the country either for leisure or business.
Stella Obinwa, Dubai Tourism Regional Director, International Operations for Africa, expressed satisfaction with the level of attendance and interactions between the participating stakeholders from Dubai and their Nigerian counterparts. The event held inside the Federal Palace Hotels and Casinos, Victoria Island, Lagos.
“We exceeded our attendance expectations for this event, we were hoping for about 80 people; we ended up having 130 people attend. All of our participants except for one that had issues coming from Dubai were able to make it here. The rain was a little bit of disturbance so we did start a bit late, but everyone had engaging presentations.
“And as you can see, several of the guests have stayed back to speak with the participants and build a relationship that is encouraging.”
She revealed that though 250,000 Nigerians travel to Dubai every year, Dubai Tourism would like to see that increase by 15 to 20 per cent. This forms the basis for Dubai Tourism’s multiple roadshow’s in Nigeria.
The event featured about a dozen participants from Dubai, who all made appealing presentations to the audience. The participating brands gave out gifts of free holidays in Dubai. Top among the gifts was an all-expense paid return ticket for a family by Emirates airline which was won by Ifedayo Andrew-Ogunbayo of Fidol Trip Services.
Pretthi Ajay, Business Head at Connect World Tours explained why his company has targeted Nigerian travellers. “There’s a lot of potential in the Nigerian market, there‘s a lot of them that travel to Dubai and we are trying to explore the tourism part of it. There are a lot of luxury hotels in Dubai and Connect World has been known for handling luxury products.”
Obinwa believes Dubai Tourism’s efforts to stimulate demand in Nigeria will bear fruit. She proffered that in the nearest future, Dubai would become the number one travel destination for Nigerians.
