Jumia Travel, Africa’s leading online travel agency, on 1st of February 2018, celebrated the 2nd edition of the Nigeria Travel Awards, which was marked with pomp and color. The awards aimed at celebrating hoteliers, airlines and travel websites for their contributions to the success of the travel, hospitality and tourism industries in 2017, as well as to encourage provision of improved quality services to Nigerians.
Omolara Adagunodo, MD, Jumia Travel Nigeria during her welcome remark said: “the objective of the awards event is to recognise the good work that different players within the travel & tourism industry are putting in to ensure customers are satisfied. As you know, our mission is to democratize travel in Africa because we believe travel makes better people and stronger business. To achieve this, we want to make travelling safer, easier, and more enjoyable for everyone at every budget.”
Similarly, the Director-General of the Nigeria Tourism Development Commission (NTDC) has called on Nigerians to promote domestic tourism by looking inwards and growing the nation’s tourism policy to enable the sector realize its full potentials.
Coker made this call during his keynote address, stressing the need to market, promote and bring the world to Nigeria using the numerous tourist attractions in the country. “To make tourism attractive”, he said, “certain steps must be taken. He listed these steps as: reviewing laws that don’t go along with recent trends in the industry; training personnel to understand how the industry works; putting infrastructure of tourism in place by investing in tourism assets; producing tourism events to international standard and doing away with bureaucratic bottlenecks that hinder access to finance meant for promoting tourism in the country.”
The 2017 African Travel Awards winners were announced as follows, under seven categories:
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Jumia Travel Booking Award 2017 – Citiheight Hotel
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Travelers’ Choice Award 2017 – Epe Resorts
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Best Leisure Hotel in Lagos 2017 – Golden Tulip, Festac
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Best Business Hotel in Lagos 2017 – Eko Hotel & Suites
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Favourite Local Airline 2017 – Air Peace
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Favourite International Airline 2017 – Emirates
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Best Travel Blog/Website in Lagos 2017 – Irin Ajo
The inaugural awards held in 2016 ascertained Jumia Travel’s commitment to keep bettering the travel experience in Africa, positioning the awards ceremony as a key event in the travel and tourism sector in each country. This year, they were simultaneously held in 8 other African cities including Nairobi, Algiers, Dakar, Abidjan, Accra, Douala, Dar Es Salaam, and Kampala.
