THE stage is now set for unveiling of a new tourism brand identity for Nigeria. In the last two weeks, Culture and Tourism Minister, Chief Edem Duke, has been criss-crossing Nigeria marketing the new project for national acceptability. Last Friday, he was on top of his voice in Lagos announcing that President Goodluck Jonathan would preside over the launch on July 9.

Also, last Monday in Abuja, the new brand identity project was the focus of a gathering anchored by the officials of culture and tourism ministry. Ditto Tuesday at the briefing on this year’s African Arts and Crafts (AFAC) Expo, the minister seized the opportunity to intimate the assembly with news of the forthcoming launch.

At the Lagos event last Friday, the minister, in company of the Director General of the Nigeria Tourism Development Commission, (NTDC) Mrs. Sally Mbanefo, said that the tourism brand identity would be called Fascinating Nigeria. He said the brand identity expresses Nigerians’ creative industry and indicates that Nigeria is the most fascinating country in the world in terms of weather, beautiful landscape, literature, music, dance, festivals, resilient and fun-loving people.

The idea, Duke stated, is in the mode of countries such as India that has Incredible India, South Africa’s It Is Possible and Malaysia’s Truly Asia. For him, Nigeria’s lack of brand identity has been a missing link in the nation’s tourism development drive.

He stated, “In summary, it means that it is time for Nigerian tourism, especially the creative sector, to have a brand identity and that is Fascinating Nigeria. It is uniquely Nigerian and we have spent the better part of last year trying to design it”.

The minister also disclosed that top Nigerian musicians including King Sunny
Ade and Tu Face Idibia would perform at the official launch.

To help boost the brand, Duke informed that about 100 heritage sites have been penciled down to be developed across the country.

He also noted, “Our brand identity is Fascinating Nigeria because there is nowhere else in the world that this appellation best suits, whether it is in business, nature’s endowment, investment climate, agriculture, whatever, but tourism is the first letter of recommendation and our culture is a major collateral for this to activate.

“Since I became minister, something has always been at the top of my mind. It is my belief that Nigeria deserves to have a distinctive tourism brand identity. In several fora where the issue of the master plan has been discussed, some of the stakeholders had raised the fact that we have not done enough in refreshing the Nigeria tourism brand.

“And for me, it has always sounded like running a brewery with a product. And so, we have been working in the last one-year on developing a distinct Nigeria tourism brand identity. All of us are aware of the fact that virtually every country in Africa and the leading countries globally which has been identified as tourist destinations have something that speak to the ethos of their product.

“And many of you who have worked with South African Tourism will remember the days of Limitless Possibilities, and a couple of weeks back, I was in a hall where the Presidents of South Africa and Nigeria sat together against the backdrop of South Africa, Inspiring New Ways.

“For many, perhaps in our delegation, it might not have mattered, but somehow, something touches my heart that Nigeria, the biggest black nation on the face of earth, deserves a lot more than that”.

According to him, the ministry has been working on the project quietly in the last one year with virtually no resources at its disposal, adding, “But on January 9, 2013, for those who may have been following the activities of the Federal Executive Council, a tourism brand identify was approved for Nigeria. Then it became judicious for us to work aggressively towards that brand that Nigerians want.

“As I speak to you, it has been resolved that in the first week of July, 2013, that brand will officially be launched in Abuja.”

He said the campaign would be on the social media before the launch date in order to begin some preliminary exposure of that brand.

Duke further said, “In pursuant, there is no place you go to anywhere in the world that you find materials that speak to the various endowments of this country. I think that Nigeria deserves more; Nigeria truly deserves more, the biggest black nation on the face of the earth, as the sole market for the tourism revenue of other countries.

“As I sat and listen to President Jacob Zuma relate that Nigerians are the greatest contributors to his country’s tourism revenue, reeling out the fact of how much they have spent in his economy. And as he confirmed emphatically that he will this year open a South Africa Tourism office in Lagos, Nigeria, I think that Nigeria not only deserves a swift, appropriate and dignifying response, but also that we have something that we can be very proud off.

“The collaterals that we present to you today will be supported be a number of activation in the mass media within the limit of our own resources”.

Asked if the new identity wasn’t a modification of Tourism is Life preached by the former boss of the corporation, Duke said that Tourism is Life was not a Nigeria tourism brand, but a statement of fact.

Duke argued, “If anybody were to adopt that as a brand identity, it is UNWTO because that encapsulates all that we were talking about. This is the first time we are going to have a dedicated tourism identity supported by collateral, merchandising and other social media.

“And this what we need to do. The fact that we had not done it in the past does not mean that what was done in the past was wrong. It was just a process of development and we link this to the tourism master plan, as I said earlier. You are all witnesses to the fact that the tourism master plan has been launched half a decade ago. I am not the person to answer why it has not been activated.

“But I want to say is that some of you will recall on my assumption of duty in this ministry. I said that I picked up the transformation agenda of this government and saw no page on tourism and culture in it. And I raised alarm at the first retreat, the orientation retreat for ministers. I said, here is a document of over two hundred pages of the economic and transformation agenda, and there is no culture, tourism in this document”.

The minister said that President Jonathan then gave him two weeks to develop an agenda for the sector and he reached out to as many people in the sector as possible and they developed a document, which today has been integrated into the transformation agenda.

“And it is, that document that we presented to the Federal Executive Council on February 9 and after the deliberation and passage, we now began to develop the road map”, he said. “And that road map to me started simultaneously with capacity building, restructuring of the sector and development of an identity.

“If you do not have an identity, nobody recognises what you are doing. It is like a wink in the dark, which we have all stopped doing. So, this is the position today. And I am sure that in the next several weeks, we would see a better manifestation of this initiative.

“For the master plan, which we developed and launched about six or seven years ago, I believe it has gone obsolete, though not totally useless. This is why we went into it to develop some quick wins that can make things visible and you will begin to see visible things in the tourism sector in Nigeria.”

For the minister, this is the time to go into the years prior to now, “we in the sector has been hard to position the sector even for domestic consumption.”

He disclosed that there was a time he challenged all the states’ commissioners to bring a package of what anybody could do in their states if such person would be spending three or five nights.

“There is nobody who has come back with any response. And these are where the assets of any country are domiciled. That is why you see that a number of things happen in certain states and it appears that we are partial, in favour of those states. It is because of lack of response from some others”.

Duke, however, promised that the engagement was continuous, noting that all the states are well endowed although not all the states are ready to take tourists arrival almost immediately, adding, “There are safety corridors that we have to build around certain areas and a number of governors have become more interested now because of dwindling internally-generated revenue and uncertain inflow from the federal allocation.

“So, the potentials, the prospects are there. We now need to look at the sector from the business perspective. We have to engage with stakeholders who have assets and investment. And we have to convey images and sounds of Nigeria even to Nigerians themselves. There are a number of Nigerians who see some images and wonder where they are, and in this book with almost five hundred pages, there are no two images that are duplicated. We have about five hundred locations of imaging.

“The private sector must be engaged and when we engage with them it is in a manner that they understand. We must be able to think like business people to assure them that there is prospect in the sector. Also, we need the media. If only we had the media, because we can sit in our offices and say everything and if those things are not conveyed to the public appropriately, then the public will continue to be uncertain and uninterested about the sector”.