By Jimoh Babatunde
Nigeria’s tourism potential has often been discussed in terms of its rich cultural heritage, historical landmarks, natural attractions and hospitality offerings. Yet, despite these enormous assets, the country continues to grapple with a fundamental challenge: converting tourism attractions into organised, marketable products capable of attracting visitors, generating revenue and creating sustainable economic opportunities.
For Elizabeth Agboola, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of NTT Global Destinations (NGD), bridging this gap is at the heart of destination development. Her approach is built on the understanding that tourism development goes beyond identifying attractive places or promoting destinations. It requires packaging experiences, understanding visitor markets, developing commercial models and creating effective channels through which tourism products can reach customers.
This philosophy informed her work on the Experience Kano destination concept and subsequently her early consultancy engagement in the development of Experience Ibom in Akwa Ibom State.
Although the two initiatives emerged from different destination environments, they reflected a shared ambition: repositioning Nigerian destinations from places with tourism potential into organised tourism markets with clearly defined products and identifiable customers.
From Experience Kano to Experience Ibom
Experience Kano was conceived around the opportunity to package Kano’s distinctive cultural heritage, history, commercial activities, hospitality and lifestyle into organised experiences that could appeal to different categories of visitors.
The thinking behind the initiative recognised that destinations cannot effectively market themselves to every visitor in the same way. Business travellers, cultural tourists, domestic holidaymakers, families and international visitors have different interests, expectations and spending capacities.
Understanding these differences is central to developing tourism products that are attractive to specific markets.
Building on this approach, Agboola was subsequently engaged to provide consultancy support for the initial conceptual development of Experience Ibom, a destination management concept designed to package and promote the tourism offerings of Akwa Ibom State.
Her assignment focused on the early conceptualisation, product definition and market positioning of the proposed destination business.
The consultancy engagement, however, ended in less than two months, before the broader development and implementation programme could be completed. The initial concept was handed over to the business owner, who retained responsibility for its subsequent development, investment, operations and expansion.
Experience Ibom has since continued its development under the leadership of Nkereuwem Onung and the Remlords Group.
For Agboola, the experience illustrates an important distinction in tourism enterprise development: conceiving and defining a destination product is one stage, while financing, implementing, operating and expanding the business requires a different set of resources, partnerships and management capabilities.
Beyond Tourism Promotion: The Business of Destination Development
According to Agboola, one of the major weaknesses in Nigeria’s tourism development approach is the tendency to concentrate heavily on destination promotion without giving sufficient attention to the commercial structure of the products being promoted.
She believes that having beautiful landscapes, historical sites, cultural festivals and hospitality facilities does not automatically translate into a functioning tourism economy.
“Many Nigerian states have extraordinary tourism assets, but having attractions does not automatically mean having a tourism product. Someone must define what is being sold, who will buy it, how it will be delivered, what experience the customer should expect and how revenue will be generated.
“That is the part of tourism development I am particularly interested in. I enjoy taking a destination that may already have cultural, historical or natural advantages and translating those advantages into products that can be positioned, packaged, distributed and sold.”
This approach places product development at the centre of destination management.
It involves identifying marketable tourism assets, determining the most appropriate visitor segments, designing experiences around their interests, identifying service providers and establishing distribution channels through which prospective visitors can access and purchase the products.
In practical terms, it means moving from simply telling potential tourists what a destination has to offer to presenting them with experiences they can understand, book and pay for.
Building Destination Economies, Not Just Destination Brands
Through NTT Global Destinations, Agboola is seeking to advance a broader destination economy model that connects tourism product development with enterprise participation, market access, digital distribution and measurable economic performance.
The ambition, she explained, extends beyond developing destination names, logos and promotional campaigns. It is about creating an organised system in which hotels, transport operators, tour guides, restaurants, attractions, event organisers and local experience providers can participate in a functioning tourism marketplace.
“A destination brand creates recognition, but a destination economy must create transactions,” she said.
“We must begin to measure how many products are available, how many providers are participating, who the customers are, how much visitors spend and how tourism revenue circulates within the local economy.
“That is how we move from talking about tourism potential to building a sector that is commercially credible, measurable and bankable.”
This perspective is particularly relevant to Nigeria, where many tourism destinations have attractions and service providers operating independently, often without the coordination and market linkages required to deliver integrated visitor experiences.
A visitor interested in exploring a destination, for instance, should be able to access accommodation, transportation, guided tours, cultural activities, restaurants and other services through an organised network rather than having to source each service independently.
Such coordination can improve the visitor experience while creating business opportunities for local operators and communities.
A Framework for States, Investors and Tourism Enterprises
NGD’s destination development model is designed to serve state governments, destination owners, investors and private tourism enterprises.
Its consultancy services cover destination product conceptualisation, visitor market segmentation, experience design, destination positioning, commercial strategy and market access development.
For state governments, this provides a framework for organising tourism assets into identifiable products and investment opportunities that can attract private-sector participation.
For investors, it offers a basis for assessing destination opportunities, developing tourism management businesses and establishing clearer revenue models.
Existing tourism operators can also benefit by repositioning their services, identifying new customer segments and connecting with wider destination distribution networks.
Agboola believes that the next phase of Nigeria’s tourism development must be driven by a stronger relationship between destination planning and commercial execution.
She maintains that tourism growth cannot be sustained by government promotion alone. It requires private investment, capable operators, community participation, effective partnerships and the development of products that respond to actual market demand.
Turning Tourism Potential into Economic Value
Nigeria’s domestic tourism market presents significant opportunities, particularly as more Nigerians explore leisure travel, cultural experiences, festivals, historical destinations and short holiday experiences within the country.
However, unlocking this market requires more than creating awareness. Destinations must offer clearly defined experiences, reliable service delivery, competitive pricing and convenient booking arrangements.
This is where destination product development and market segmentation become important tools for tourism growth.
For Agboola, Experience Kano and her early consultancy work on Experience Ibom demonstrate the possibilities of approaching destinations as products and markets rather than merely places to visit.
“The concept is only the beginning. Successful delivery requires investment, capable operators, local partnerships and sustained execution. Each of these has an important place in building a functioning destination economy,” she said.
Through NGD, she is seeking to extend this approach to other Nigerian destinations and tourism enterprises interested in developing commercially viable products and accessing wider markets.
As Nigeria intensifies efforts to grow domestic tourism, attract international visitors and derive greater economic value from its cultural and natural resources, the challenge is increasingly becoming one of converting potential into products, and products into sustainable businesses.
The journey from Experience Kano to Experience Ibom offers an insight into this emerging approach to tourism development: destinations must not only be attractive; they must also be packaged, positioned, accessible and commercially viable.
Ultimately, the success of Nigeria’s tourism industry may depend not simply on how many attractions the country possesses, but on how effectively those attractions are transformed into experiences people are willing to pay for.
Editorial note: This version adopts a tourism feature approach rather than a corporate press release, with greater emphasis on destination development, market segmentation, commercialisation and the wider implications for Nigeria’s tourism economy. It also preserves the distinction between Agboola’s initial consultancy contribution to Experience Ibom and its subsequent development by the business owner.
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