A new tour online booking site has been launched, giving tourists a chance to easily find tour packages around Nigeria.
Naijaholidays.com, a newly established online service owned by Avantgarde Tours Limited, has been designed to sell tour packages organised by Avantgarde Tours and other reputable tour operators in the country.
Some of the leading tour operators in the country like Travel Next Door owned by award-winning travel journalist, Pelu Awofeso, and SJ Tours, owned by the chairperson of the Lagos chapter of the Federation of Tourism Association of Nigeria (FTAN), Mrs Abiola Ogunbiyi, are already packaging tour products for naijaholidays.com.
Mr Efetobo Awhana, the Managing Director of Avantgarde Tours enthused that Nigeria is a very beautiful country that can rival other prime tourist destinations in the world.
According to him, Nigeria has no excuse not to benefit from tourism as all the excuses of insecurity, infrastructures and others often touted by some do not hold water. He pointed that all the thriving and successful tourism destinations have one form of challenge or the other, with many facing these same that we have.
“Before now, it is almost impossible to go online and get information about tours in the country. We have over the years been turning down clients whose budgets weren’t big enough for outbound tours. However, now we have more people who cannot afford outbound tours and will therefore look for valuable packages around the country.
“We must take advantage of this situation for good to help Nigerians imbibe the culture of travelling around Nigeria,” said Efetobo Awhana.
He emphasized that giving visitors an “easy way to enjoy the splendour and beauty of our rich cultural, natural and man-made attractions” has been his main concern as well as the “boundless opportunities for the communities around the attractions to fight poverty and benefit from the trickle-down effects of tourism”.
Avantgarde Tours has thus launched this valuable service to cater first for Nigerians. Soon, the service will be extended to foreigners who, for the time being, can only book any of the tours available offline. The first objective is to build the awareness and confidence of Nigerians in domestic tourism who will then become ambassadors for the country when they travel out.
Asked about the kind of service that tourists can expect from his online booking site, Efetobo Awhana enumerated several benefits awaiting his customers.
“First, tourists want to get information before they decide to take any tour package. So, naijaholidays.com also has a blog about the different places of interest,” Efetobo Awhana explained.
The new website allows tourists to choose from several payment options powered by technology company, REMITA. They can pay using a card, make an online transfer or even take down the booking number and make payments at the bank.
He further added that tourists enjoy the advantage of great company and networking on the tours, which is one of the major attractions for group tours. Many lifelong friendships and business partnerships are often built via these meetings in laid back settings.
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