Lagos – The proprietor of Edache Travels, Mr Jones Edache, on Saturday frowned at commercial banks dabbling into the selling travel tickets.
“It is wrong for banks to take-over what travel agents are supposed to be doing and contribute to the nation’s economic development,’’ he told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos.
“Banks have no reasons to venture into areas they do not have core competencies in and into areas that are not part of their core mandate.
“The number of new entrants as travel agents is bound to reduce drastically in the country with banks coming into the travel business,’’ Edache said.
Edache also said non professionals were encroaching into both the travel and tourism businesses in Nigeria.
“Travel business and its affiliate enterprises, for example, have been infiltrated into by many people who do not know the onion of what they are into.
“A major challenge of the Nigeria’s tourism industry is the constant influx of people who have no iota of professional training in the sector,’’ Edache said.
He said the high rate of poor service being rendered to international travellers in Nigeria was because of the huge number of quacks operating travel agencies.
Edache said when clients received services not commensurate with their tastes and standards from indigenous travel agencies, such tourists would not want to patronize the agencies next time.
This would also discourage them from wishing to visit the country next time thus reducing the foreign exchange revenue base of the country, he said.
“Our travel industry is not as lucrative as it used to be because today, we now have every Tom, Dick and Harry posing as an agent.
“The so called unprofessional agents have flooded the industry.
“These are persons with no knowledge of how to go about booking flight tickets or provide other services that travel agencies do.
“The eradication of mediocre in this business should be a main quest,’’ he said.
According to him, the travel industry is one of the few sectors that give solace to fresh graduates as a source of employment worldwide.
Edache urged the National Association of Nigeria Travel Agencies (NANTA) to strengthen its advocacy to eliminate quackery in the business.
NANTA should propose strategies for government to help curb banks from taking over core businesses of NANTA members, he said. (NAN)
