Chinedu Eze
With COVID-19, a major threat to air travel and economic growth, Nigeria may spend over $1.5 billion on international travel in 2022, THISDAY investigations has revealed.
In 2021, Nigeria spent about $1 billion on international travel despite and COVID-19 pandemic, which had negative impact on the global economy. But 2022 half-year results from travel agencies have shown that Nigerians may spend more money on foreign travel.
Recently, the International Air Travel Association (IATA) noted that Nigeria is one of the countries that quickly bounced back on international travel post COVID-19 restrictions.
IATA added that there are projections that in 2022, Nigeria would record about 4 million passenger traffic on international travel, compared to 2,219,146 recorded in 2021
The Managing Director of Nigeria’s second biggest travel agencies, Finchglow Travels and the former President of the National Association of Nigeria Travel Agencies (NANTA), Mr. Bankole Bernard, told THISDAY that his company, which remained number one until few months ago when it was surpassed by Wakanow, hoped to earn N40 billion revenue by the end of 2022, which is about 35 per cent increase from last year’s N26 billion.
Bernard said that travel rebound started last year but restrictions due to COVID-19 protocols on air travel was a disincentive but this year many countries have opened up and many Nigerians are willing to travel, noting that many travel for business, some for tourism, others for medical reasons and many are overseas students, remarking that many Nigerians are travelling overseas for higher education.
He explained that the N26 billion revenues his company recorded last year was due to restrictions in air travel, disclosing that in 2019, his company earned N36 billion before COVID-19 devastation of the pandemic in 2020.
“In the last few months Walanow has topped us at…