NTDC Launches ‘Tourism Hackathon Nigeria’

The Nigerian Tourism Development Corporation (NTDC) has launched Tourism Hackathon Nigeria (THN).

The initiative is essentially to proffer digital solutions to the challenges and bridge the gaps in the sector.

In his remarks during the launch of THN, which took place recently in Lagos, the Director General, NTDC, Folorunsho Coker said the initiative was to accelerate the growth of the nation’s tourism industry.

Coker noted that across the world, tourism had evolved to become one of the fastest-growing industries being driven by the deployment of advanced technology and increased holiday culture.

“The fact is that the opportunities embedded in tourism are enormous. However, to fully utilise the potential of tourism for economic growth, we realise 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. This is why we have identified the need to deploy technological solutions for sectoral growth across the tourism value chain in Nigeria with the launch of Tourism Hackathon Nigeria.

“With over 147 million active internet subscriptions and a tele-density of almost 97 per cent, we have a readymade and vast domestic market for tourism development locally.

“This is why we have come up with 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 to 24 months,” Coker added.

According to Coker, some of the identified challenges burdening businesses within the ecosystem revolved around proper pricing, safe payment channels, access to the market, customer service and retention as well as bookings and reservations.

“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.

“However, with THN, our goal 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.

“We want to be able to imagine a future in which a tourist’s journey experience is fully enhanced by the digitisation of all support activities – from the pre-booking stages until the destination experience, with more digital interactions supported by data shared in a customised, 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 such as smart integration of information (Smart City), multimodal mobility services, customised route optimisation with sustainability in mind, and virtual and augmented reality.

“The opportunities are limitless through technology, which is why we’re reaching out to the tech community to come up with new ideas for the sector,” the DG further said.

Earlier, the Chief Executive Officer, Bycep, one of the partners for the actualisation of the initiative, Mr. Ayo Gbadebo, explained the modalities.

Gbadebo noted that the hackathon would be done during the forthcoming United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) Conference scheduled to hold in Lagos, from November 14th to November 15th.

He said the initiative would engage interested individuals to rethink tourism in a digital technology space, saying an application portal had been opened.

“These individual will be engaged to develop technological apps, for instance like Uber, travel advisor and all, the idea is that whatever application developed should be such that will aid tourism growth.

“For the days, these individuals will be accommodated to work properly, and application is opened to everyone in the tourism space, from the six geo-political zones of the country,” he said.

The National President, National Association of Tour Operators (NATOP), Mrs. Ime Udom welcomed the initiative.