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With Okorie Uguru
The First National Deputy President of the National Association of Nigerian Travel Agencies (NANTA) Pastor Chinyere Umeasiegbu has called on the association’s members to re-elect her to the position of First National Deputy President to consolidate on the achievements and strides made over the last two years, and also push forward with new visionary ideas that would further impact positively on members and their businesses.
Speaking to journalists on the 50th elective Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the association billed for Ibadan, Oyo State next month, Pastor Umeasiegbu said she is coming to NANTA’s leadership as a tested hand: “I am not coming as armchair. I’m coming as an experienced leader. I’m coming as value added, because that is what I promised. That is what I do. I’m coming to deliver on what has been started. We do not want a disruption at this stage. See the foundation that was laid in two years. Another two years, let’s consolidate. That’s what I’m asking for in 2026. We would not only do that, we would go into some novel ideas.”
She reeled out some of the giant strides of the association under the current executives. These include international business exposure by continuing with the NANTA International Travel and Trade Conference (ITTC) which took the association to The Gambia, embarking on trainings for members, the NANTA Hospitality Business Initiatives, interfacing with relevant governmental agencies on issues affecting members and the association and many more. She spoke further: “We came in April 2024. We said let’s go back to WTM again, 2024. But I have noticed something with the rest of my team that in 2023 WTM, almost all those of us that went, they did not understand the power of WTM. They were just going there for paparazzi, taking pictures, picking pens, and souvenir. So in 2024, I gathered them, I said, look, team, let’s have training. First of all, let’s be able to guide our people to get visas properly. Let’s guide them on how to process the visa properly. Now, let’s also train them to know that WTM is a powerful tool for business development. So we did all that training towards WTM 2024. Now, we also decided that WTM 2024 was going to be promoting domestic tourism, promoting Nigeria. I brought that initiative because I was project head, WTM. It was my purview. I said if we’re going to do that, let’s go and meet other people to see how they can support us in raising fund. Because for WTM 2022, 2023, even 2024, members were the ones that raised the funding for it.”
She also said with her background in investment banking, she would continue to pursue opportunities to open up extra streams of income outside ticketing for members. She gave an example with NANTA Hospitality Initiative: “With NANTA Hospitality Initiative, I’ve started it to go identify hotels, resorts, restaurants, any player in the hospitality space to give them proposals. The reason is two levels: discount for my members, and discount for my members to earn money. We did that with Lakowe Lakes. The deal is signed. The MOU is sealed. We sent it Ziba Resort. We are sending it out. I told my team, I said, not just in Lagos, in Abuja, in Port Harcourt, anywhere.”
Pastor Chi also harped on the need for gender balancing and equity saying it is important that NANTA, which is celebrating its 50th year anniversary AGM, with about 70 per cent of the members being women, must give females opportunity to be represented in the core national executives.
