The Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) has commended the National Association of Nigeria Travel Agencies (NANTA) for its contributions to the nation’s aviation sector growth and charged the leadership of the group to tap into emerging opportunities in the sector to improve the members’ earnings with the attendant positive implications for the travel industry.
The commission’s Director-General/Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Babatunde Irukera, made this remark during his meeting with the association’s executive led by Mrs. Susan Akporiaye at its 47th Annual General Meeting (AGM) held on Thursday in Abuja
In his keynote address at the AGM on Thursday, the FCCPC boss specifically tasked the members to collaborate in order to break new grounds in the challenging travel sector, adding that they must be innovative in tackling the constraining problems.
Irukera advised the members of the association to do a critical study of the aviation industry, particularly with the challenges posed by foreign airlines’ trapped funds, hotel booking services, cargo, car hire services, and tourism, pointing out that understanding the depth of the industry value chain, technological growth, and empowerment, will help them to determine not only how to survive but how to thrive.
He said: ”From what I can see, some of you here, about eighty percent are merely surviving and twenty percent thriving, so the way to go is to find out how you can satisfy the needs of your customers.”
“You have to innovate, reformat the semantics inherent in the sector, or die a natural death. In all these, attention must be paid to orientation, a kind of strategic campaign that can provide answers to the needs of Nigerian travelling public rather than seeking sympathy”, the FCCPC’s boss added
While noting that the global business environment has invalidated most tested age-long business models as it sorely targets profitability, Irukera charged the NANTA members to “go target and unlock technology and find out why airlines do what they do, for instance, how a ticket from Doha to New York is cheaper than from Lagos to New York. Add value and more value and leave other contentious areas to the regulators,”
Earlier in her welcome address, the NANTA President noted that the association’s members were confronting multi-pronged challenges that had made it very difficult for most travel agencies to survive, adding that despite the problems, the members will not give up in their struggles to sustain their roles in the industry.
Akporiaye said: “We shall fight to remain relevant, responsive, and strong. We are looking at other areas of the economy, particularly tourism, and to which we have launched Africa to Africa Tourism campaign with a sister agency in Ghana, supported by South Africa Tourism. Come next month, a training tourism conference in Johannesburg certainly will reveal our road map in this area which NANTA members, will immensely benefit from.”
