NTDC DG, Folorunsho Coker’s Innovation  

All you need to know that Folorunsho Folarin Coker, otherwise known as Folly Coker, is the brains needed to bring further development to the Nigerian Tourism Development Corporation is the recently launched Tour Nigeria initiative, an ambitious attempt at making Nigeria a major destination for tourism, hospitality, arts and entertainment in Africa. It was launched in Lagos last week.

Hardworking  Folorunsho Folarin-Coker is known for working wonders wherever fate had placed him in the public service in the past years. By all measures, he is no doubt an accomplished man. His status makes him the envy of many as he towers far and above many of his contemporaries.

Even in his everyday life, his profile is continually on the rise. It is easily agreed that he is blessed with the proverbial Midas touch!

Since he was appointed as the Director General Nigerian Tourism Development Corporation, NTDC he continued to bring development with an ambitious attempt at making Nigeria a major destination for tourism, hospitality, arts and entertainment in Africa.

Last Tuesday NTDC launched a new product to reinvent the nation’s tourism industry.

Announcing the innovation, Folarin- Coker, stated that the product is being launched to utilise the potential of tourism for economic growth. “Across the world, tourism has evolved to become one of the fastest-growing industries. This growth has been driven by the deployment of advanced technology in travel and increased holiday culture. Indeed, the opportunities embedded in tourism are enormous.

“However, to fully utilise the potential of tourism for economic growth, we recognize that we cannot revert to the old ways of working, there is an urgent need to reflect and rethink what we do and how we do it. Therefore, we have identified the need to deploy technological solutions for sectoral growth across the tourism value chain in Nigeria.

“With over 147 million active internet subscriptions and a teledensity of almost 97%, we have a ready-made and vast domestic market for tourism development locally.

Why the Hackathon?

“As a corporation, we launched “Tour Nigeria” as the strategic vision to market domestic tourism across the country in 2017 and we also designed an ambitious plan to reinvent the tourism industry through the CHIEF PLAN, which is an acronym that stands for Corporate Governance, Human Capital Development, Infrastructure Development, Events and Financing’’

“We have come up with the “Hackathon” to provide unique and innovative solutions to identified challenges and gaps across the tourism value chain in Nigeria, using digital tools that will be developed at scale within the next 18-24 months,” he said.

According to the NTDC DG, some of the identified challenges burdening businesses within the ecosystem include Proper Pricing, Safe Payment channels, Access to the market, Customer service and retention, and Bookings and reservations.

Coker revealed that other issues raised include Data Collection and Analytics, Distribution, Setup, System Issues, Supply Chain and Logistics.

He emphasised that the goal of NTDC is to improve the country’s ranking on the World Economic Forum competitiveness index by harnessing the growing popularity of digital technology to solve prevalent problems across the tourism value chain in Nigeria.

He said: “We want to be able to imagine a future in which a tourist’s journey experience is fully enhanced by the digitization of all support activities (from the pre-booking stages until the destination experience), with more digital interactions supported by data shared in a customized, secure and private way between the different players within the tourism ecosystem.

“To achieve this desired objective, we are looking for ideas that are scalable and sustainable on a use-case basis. Ideas that encompass Smart integration of information (Smart City), Multimodal mobility services, Customized route optimization, Ideas with sustainability in mind, and Virtual and Augmented Reality.

 “The Hackathon creates an avenue for carefully selected developers from the six geo-political zones of the country to develop digital tools that aim to solve some of the frictions and dislocations experienced across the industry. With the support of the UNWTO and the Federal Ministry of Information and Culture, we believe we can achieve these objectives.