By Emeka Anokwuru
The Akwaaba African Travel Market has continued to provide the plank for tourism stakeholders to do real-time business with their counterparts in West Africa, in order to sustain the leading role of the industry as an important economic catalyst.
Director-general of the National Council for Arts and Culture (NCAC), Olusegun Runsewe, said recently while declaring open the 13th edition of the travel market at the Eko Hotel and Suites, Lagos, that the brand has become a reference point for tourism professionals in Africa. Runsewe commended the organisers of Akwaaba for building and sustaining a big brand in Africa, and called for support for the Akwaaba Travel show in future as well as the need for travel and tourism stakeholders to tap into the event to grow the sector.
He stated that Nigeria would soon give oil a break, as culture would now be the country’s mainstay. Runsewe disclosed that the NCAC would be taking the country’s culture commissioners to Dubai to understudy how that country was able to reposition their culture as a foreign exchange earner, in line with efforts to deepen Nigeria’s cultural offerings.
The Akwaaba event opened with an exciting jollof rice contest between chefs from Nigeria and Ghana, who slugged it out to determine the country that cooked the best jollof rice in West Africa.
At the event, the permanent secretary, Lagos State Ministry of Tourism, Mr. Ashimi Adewale, stated that the state government was investing a lot in the area of tourism, environment and infrastructure to promote tourism in Lagos.
Adewale said the strategy wss aimed at promotion, which was why the state participated in the Akwaaba African Travel Market.
He explained that the proposed post-event city tour of Lagos was aimed at showcasing the beauty of Lagos and to take guests to places of interest to discover the treasures of the city of Lagos.
In his opening remarks, the organiser of the event, Ikechi Uko, said the need to create a tourism brand in Africa informed his decision to start Akwaaba African Travel Market.
Uko explained that Akwaaba, which started 13 years ago with only six exhibitors, has remained the only travel trade event that is solely private sector-driven and without hosted buyers, taking place in Nigeria annually.
He commended the Lagos State government for staging a comeback at Akwaaba after a long absence. Uko said that Lagos would be taking the guests and others visitors at the event on a city tour to show them places of interest in the state on Wednesday, after the Akwaaba event on Tuesday.
Uko also explained that the jollof rice contest was not actually a competition, but a means to create something unique around the staple food eaten and prepared in various ways in West Africa, since there were 25 versions of jollof rice in West Africa.
For the jollof contest, nine of the chefs came from Ghana while 17 were from Nigeria. The event featured beautiful dance from a troupe of Rwandan dancers, who added glitz and glamour to the evening.
The Calabar carnival queens, who performed all through the three-day exhibition, added beauty to the event with their colourful costumes, along with the jollof rice contest, where the judges, who were neither from Nigeria nor Ghana, went round to taste the rice from the chefs in the competion.
Although the organiser said the jollof contest was not a competition, guests and others at the event eagerly awaitedfor the result of the contest, to find out the champion or the country whose recipe won popular votes.
Kenyan Captain Irene Muting, the first African female flight captain, was appointed the chief judge of the unique event. The Aviation Day recorded a large turnout as guests sat to listen to Mr. Gbenga Olowo, and other experts discuss current issues affecting the sector in relation to safety of travel. For them, 2016 was the safest year in Africa as it did not record any accident. There was also a youth segment, where youth tourism was x-rayed.