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Mrs. Victoria Soluade, Managing Director of Soltan Travels And Tours, Ikoyi, Lagos, is a graduate of Fine Arts from Ahmadu BelloUniversity, Zaria....
Mrs. Victoria Soluade, Managing Director of Soltan Travels And Tours, Ikoyi, Lagos, is a graduate of Fine Arts from Ahmadu BelloUniversity, Zaria. Today, she is a renowned marketer and consultant in travels and tourism.
She attributes her managerial and marketing ability and many successes in her chosen business to the wealth of experience gathered while in the service of the Nigerian Airways. Soluade who loves travelling delved deeply into the factors undermining tourism in Nigeria.
Background
I worked with Nigerian Airways, having joined them as a sakes representative. I was in their service until 1994 when I retired as assistant manager sakes procedures and stock marketing. All through my service year, I worked in the marketing department of the airline. When I left, I set up my own business.
Experience
That same 1994, I set up Soltan Tours and Travels. The experience I must say has been great. From the time we started, we knew that we wanted to give complete travels services, not just ticketing. We wanted to be able to give people a complete service at their destination, whether they are coming into Nigeria or going out. I think by and large, today, we have been able to achieve that.
Starting up
I started with contribution from my husband, a bank and myself. At first, there were some little hiccups, which were some of the initial problems of starting up a business. At first, it was the problem of getting a proper office. You know this business; you just can't open an office anywhere. So, initially, the place I paid for was not ready and we had to wait for almost three years for it to be ready before we started. And when we started, it was in the heat of the Abacha problem. For three months, there were no work, and no sales. We go to the office every day but people were not travelling. That was in the middle of the strike in 1994, the Abacha strike. But we thank God we are still here today.
The company
The company is a complete travels service company. It provides inbound and outbound services. By inbound, I mean those outside Nigeria and coming in. We provide ground handling services for them, book their hotel, handle their ground transport services. And if they so please, we give them entertainment. For outbound, we do the same thing.
This is for Nigerians who are leaving the country. We don't just do ticketing, if they desire, we book their accommodation, the transfers, provide entertainment. We do practically everything they need to do at their destination, these we handle on their behalf. We also represent Cruise International. They represent five of the top cruise lines in the world, including Royal Caribbean, Celebrity Cruises etc. By cruise, I mean a luxury trip on a live boat or ship. We also sell cruises from here, so people don't have to go to London or the US to book for their cruises.
Tourism in Nigeria and outside Nigeria
In all honesty, you cannot compare the level of tourism in Nigeria and other countries. They are way ahead of us. I tell you, even this moment, there is no electricity and our job is hampered. The ICP we have function 24 hours, 7 days a week. These are some of the problems that face tourism in Nigeria. Here in Nigeria, people are yet to appreciate the benefit of tourism. Even the government is a bit slow in investing in the industry. I think they are just now beginning to see from the statistics coming from other countries.
We have so much and we have not really tapped into it. Nigeria is still a virgin country as far as tourism is concerned compared to other countries, even our West and Central African neighbours like Cameroon and Republic of Benin.
Impediments to the growth of tourism in Nigeria
Yes, I have already stated one, which is lack of electricity. Poor infrastructure, high cost of hotel accommodation, security issues as well as lack of adequate information on Nigeria, even on the Internet. There is also the problem of lack of brochures; posters etc, in fact, everything that can give people positive information about Nigeria. Indeed, we have a lot of problems.
But I think among all the listed, the biggest is lack of adequate information about Nigeria to the outside world. So, people just imagined whatever they can to the best of their ability. And they tend to depend on information on us from places such as America where they will tell you to watch how you travel to Nigeria for tourism, that it is dangerous.
We have an incident where one of our partners, indeed twice now were advised not to come to Nigeria. One was in 1996 or so when our partner from Tanzania coming to Nigeria for the first time informed us that our embassy at that time advised her not to travel to Nigeria. This is our own embassy advising our partner not to come to Nigeria that it was risky. She was a lady, so she said to them it doesn't matter, that she was determined to go that they should issue her a visa.
And why was she coming here? Because of the problem of lack of information on Nigeria. They were developing a website for African countries and to promote them, so they needed information on Nigeria. When it came to Nigeria, the information they could get was that of the 60s where according to her, Nigeria was said to be of a population of 65milion. She knew from accurate information she could gather, that it was not correct.
She said that the other information they had on the web was that of newspapers that had expired and ceased to exist. So, she had to come to Nigeria to gather first hand information for herself. This was after she had sent mails to the Nigeria Tourism Board and the ministry but never got any response. Then she set out to take the risk, to spend her money to gather information about Nigeria and promote her and the embassy told her it was risky.
Just two weeks ago, we had another of our partners coming from South Africa coming to Nigeria and a friend of his told him he could get killed or kidnapped. So these, are some of the factors impeding the growth of tourism in Nigeria. This is why you find predominantly visitors to Nigeria being businessmen. The lure of the oil money I think is still there. But I suppose as the businessmen are coming, maybe in fairness they see that their investments are not jeopardized. There are challenges quite all right, but they are challenges that can be overcome and then their businesses are thriving. You find out that they are like ‘hey why not'.
In every country, there are places you should go to and places you shouldn't go if you are not a resident. So, the problem about Nigeria is not an exception. But it is like the negatives about our country have been over blown that people have a problem deciding out of million destinations, why should they come to Nigeria.
Vision
I believe vision changes. When we started, we had our vision then pasted on the wall. It stated that we want to be an internationally recognized full service company, giving travels services with love, I like good report and to see people coming back for the services you give. I think we have achieved most of these. Now, we are setting out for a new vision. We want to expand the range of services we offer now. We are now internationally and locally recognized and a full service company. Now, I think our vision is expanding to other areas.
Advice to women
I believe a woman should work and have her own independent source of income. It may not necessarily be corporate. It takes a leap of faith go into a business, then believe deep inside you that God has put something special inside you to benefit others. The Bible has 365 fear-nots, one for each day. If you take one fear-not pill everyday, the fear will give way for courage. When I was starting, I entertained no fear whatever. Then, it wasn't as if the money was there. I got a bit from here and there and took a leap of faith. I took it one step at a time. First, I paid the rent without knowing where the money to start off was going to come from.
Really, if you are afraid, you will never do anything. Not just women but anybody who is afraid of taking a leap of faith. Like those I mentioned that came to Nigeria, or like Esther in the Bible did by saying; ‘well if I die, I die' if they hadn't taken the risk and come to Nigeria, they wouldn't have the type of business ventures they have today. This is the true spirit of a businessman or woman. All you need is a strong faith in whatever vocation God has given you. And then, a strong faith that you are going to succeed in no matter the challenges. As for challenges, they will come. That is what life is made of. Challenges build you and build your character. If you are afraid of them, you will never grow.