The Nigerian Tourism Development Corporation (NTDC) has launched the ‘Tourism Hackathon Nigeria’, a digital technological development to accelerate tourism growth in the country.
The Director-General of NTDC, Chief Folorunsho Coker during the week in Lagos said the initiative was meant to solve challenges affecting businesses within the tourism ecosystem.
Coker identified such problems as: proper pricing; safe payment channels; access to market; customer service and retention; bookings and reservations; data collection and analytics; distribution setup; supply chain and logistics.
According to him, the initiative is a collaborative effort of the private and public sectors.
He said the private sector would bring the intellectual capacity while the public provides the enabling resources that would help the idea to thrive.
“We have come up with the hackathon to provide unique and innovative solutions to identify challenges and gaps across the tourism value chain in Nigeria.
“This will be done by using digital tools that will be developed at scale within the next 18 to 24 months.
“Our goal is to improve the country’s ranking on the world economic forum competitiveness index by harnessing the growing popularity of digital technology to solve prevalent problems across the tourism value chain in Nigeria.
“We want to be able to imagine a future in which a tourist’s journey experience is fully enhanced by the digitization of all support activities,” he said.
According to Coker, these efforts are neccessary to upscale the tourism industry considering the enormous potential inherent in the industry.
He said going by the theme for the 2022 World Tourism Day, “Rethinking Tourism”, there was an urgent need to reflect and rethink operations in the industry over the years.
“With over 147 million active internet subscriptions and a tele-density of almost 97 per cent, we have a ready-made and vast domestic market for tourism development locally,” he said.
Earlier, Mr Ayo Gbadebo, Chief Executive Officer, Bycep, one of the partners for the actualisation of the initiative explained the modalities.
Gbadebo noted that the hackathon would be done during the forthcoming United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) Conference from scheduled to hold in Lagos from Nov. 14 to Nov. 15.
He said the intiative would engage interested individuals to rethink tourism in a digital technology space, as the application portal (www.bycep.co/tourismhackathon) had been opened.
“These individual will be engaged to develop technological apps, for instance like Uber, travel advisor and all, the idea is that whatever application developed should be such that will aid tourism growth.
“For the days, these individuals will be accomodated to work properly, and application is opened to everyone in the tourism space, from the six geo-political zones of the country.
“Top best five individuals will be picked at the first stage while the overall winner will be rewared with an all expense paid trip to Madrid.
“The winner will also have the privilege of representing Nigeria at the Uinted Nations World Tourism Organisation innovation challenge in 2023,” he said.
South-West Coordinator, Federation of Tourism Associations of Nigeria (FTAN), Mr Tunde Kolade said, “We are proud of this innovation, and we are ready to partner with you on this.”
Also, National Financial Secretary, National Association of Nigeria Travel Agencies (NANTA) Mr Yinka Ladipo, congratulated NTDC for the beautiful innovation.
He expressed excitement over the choice of engaging a local technological company to coordinate the initiative.
“From NANTA, you have our full corporation,” he said.
Mrs Ime Udom, National President, National Association of Tour Operators (NATOP), said “This is a welcome development, this will take tourism to the desired state, we are looking forward to more technological growth in the industry.
“In building formidable future economy, we need the digital technology to be in tune with International best practises.”