Bright Odionye loves travelling and making each moment count on his trips which are budget friendly. An experience when saddled with planning a 5 day trip which wasn’t professionally handled by a tour guide led him to establish Toursom to help tourists plan their vacation across Nigeria at affordable rates.
The Travel and Tourism industry contributed 29 percent in world service exports as of June 2019 with $1.7 trillion as total export earnings from international tourism, creating 1 in 5 jobs within the past 5 years. According to the UNWTO and WTO. International tourist arrivals grew by 4 percent in Africa with Mauritius, Kenya, Egypt and South Africa as preferred destinations on the continent.
Nigeria is Africa and one of the world’s best kept tourism destinations. With fabled sites like Benin Moats and Sukur Hills which are UNESCO World Heritage Monuments, Oranmiyan Staff at Ile-Ife which answers requests within 21 days, Sungbo’s Eredo at Ijebu Ode, Ogbaukwu Cave in Owerre Ezukala in Anambra, Obudu and Mambilla Plateau which are the coolest points in Nigeria amongst other amazing wonders, Nigeria has opportunities. However, due to lack of political will from the Federal and State Governments in fixing infrastructure to boost tourism, as an important solution to job creation for millions of unemployed Nigerians, the opportunities remain latent.
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Due to the harsh economic situation in Nigeria, most Nigerians do not engage in leisure or tourism related activities to relax compared to their counterparts in developed countries. Also absence of accurate data by tourism promotion agencies of the government on tourism destinations has made an industry which ought to be generating millions of dollars in export earnings noncompetitive.
Toursom wants to promote a recreation and travel culture amongst Nigerians by organizing weekend getaways, short vacations for groups and a micro savings culture which will help people to save towards their vacation. By leveraging technology, it wants to offer the best customer experience ahead of the competition by providing personalized services to suit its different clientele and hopes to be Africa’s leading vacation platform within 5 years from commencement.