Optiva Capital CEO Advocates Holistic Value Proposition to Boost Tourism

Against the background of the nation’s challenging economic reality which has in turn affected businesses, stifling the ease of doing business including the economic impact on tourism, the Managing Director/CEO of Optiva Capital Partners, a leading investment immigration wealth management company, Ms. Jane Kimemia has advocated the adoption of a holistic value proposition for tourism development that addresses funding, and how to create the enabling environment to be able to actually execute.

At a Policy Dialogue on “the Economic Impact of Tourism in Lagos” where she was a key discussant, Ms. Kimemia tasked participants to identify how to tackle the challenges, and how to start identifying tourism as one key economic driver.

Her position aligns with the objective of the policy dialogue on the economic impact of tourism in Lagos State to discuss the challenges, setbacks and proffer solutions and the way forward which will improve the tourism sector and improve revenue generation which will contribute immensely to the economy of Lagos State and the entire nation.

Kimemia cited the example of Kenya, which she said is very big on tourism and was built over the years because there is clear intentionality in “attracting visitors, in defining what the value proposition is, and what visitors are coming to see.”

Consequently, she opined that participants and industry players have to be clear about “who are we, what is the culture, because it is truly about defining that at higher levels of government, in terms of policy, framework, infrastructure, the entire eco-system, then after that who are the individual players because these are the key components.”

On creating a proper structure to drive the process of building a robust tourism industry, she stated that the drivers of the industry should define the “value proposition and how do we start to attract investment into the tourism sector across Nigeria. Tourism is about an entire eco system. How do you build the intermediary between the interest internationally and the actualisation of that. Before we talk of Direct Foreign Investments there is a lot of wealth in Nigeria because I have worked across different markets in Africa and there is no where you have the kind of wealth, the depth that you have in Nigeria. But how we plan it is through structures that can be trusted to basically pool funds to go into specific investments because that is a challenge.”

Ms. Kimemia therefore advocated the creation of investment vehicles that people can invest in. She also recommended pooling funds from Nigerians in the diaspora because there is a huge Nigerian presence in the diaspora that is very wealthy. But she restated that when it comes to funding the issue of trust is important and the vehicles to enable people to invest back home.

Above all, Ms. Kimemia emphasised the need for an enabling environment that will ensure infrastructure, ease of doing business, and the overall macro-economy