NIGERIA: A TOURISM DESTINATION FULL OF CHALLENGES?

uigeria is literally sitting on a tourism and hospitality gold mine. According to the Nigeria Hospitality Report 2016, the industry generated an estimated $5.5 million, representing about 4.8 per cent contribution to Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the third quarter of 2016. The report by Jumia Travel Nigeria, Africa’s hotel booking online portal, also said the industry employed about 1.6 per cent of Nigerians in 2016.

Although Jumia’s Country Manager Kushal Dutta predicted that the industry’s contribution to the GDP will fall by 7.3 per cent this year, if security challenges persist, he projected that tourism will overtake the downstream oil and gas sector by 2021, if Nigeria adopts the recentlylaunched African Union (AU) passport. According to him, a unified, pan-African passport will allow free movement of domestic tourists in Nigeria.

The AU had last year unveiled a common electronic passport that will grant holders visa-free access to all its 54-member countries. The initiative represented