Daisi Olotu: My vision for NANTA

As the race to occupy the office of the National Association of Nigerian Travel Agency (NANTA) presidency hots up, a frontline candidate for the position and the Group Managing Director of Dees Travels and Tours Limited, Mr. Daisi Olotu has outlined his plan for the apex travel body.

Olotu, while speaking with Aviation Metric said his vision is to take the association to a new level from where it is presently.

He equally stated that he would plan to work with the government in actualizing and bringing to fruition the NANTA Act which has been under revision at the House of Assembly since 2018 after which it was expected to be passed to the Committee for review and l undergo a public hearing. “By the end of this year, the NANTA Act should be passed into law.

Currently, the travel trade business in Nigeria has no legislative backing as travel falls under the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCA), which is one of the government parastatals.

Although travel trade associations in other countries, such as South Africa and Kenya, prefer to remain voluntary instead of regulated by the government, in Nigeria the situation is different,

According to him, “We also need to work with the government in the areas of the NANTA Act that were abandoned for some time. One of the past presidents worked on that Act and it was read on the floor of the National Assembly but got to the Presidency and we did not hear anything from it again.”

“We need to know what exactly has happened to this Act. We need to know what we can do to ensure that we bring this Act to life. That is exactly what can bring NANTA out. We are NANTA and not NATOP; we are travel agents. If we follow that line as travel agents, we have a lot to gain from. We have a lot to render to the Nigerian people.”

On reformation of NANTA, he noted that there was the need to bring together ‘portfolio’ agents, describing their inclusion as ‘the more the merrier’.

“As we are now, if we are 2000 members and we grow to 5000, of course, it is going to be better for the association because we get more dues from members and we begin to arrange more training programmes for members. Members will pay for this training and that is more income to the association. Before you know it, the association becomes a virile body. There is no association where there is no money.”

“There is one data company that says we have over 5000 travel agents in Nigeria. Who are these travel agents? We need to bring them on board. We need to train them properly to become travel agents.’

“The other day, our attention was drawn to news that somebody duped somebody N7.5 million or so to do Canadian residency. They mentioned in the news the travel agent and I looked at the membership of our association and I could not find this name. We need to bring more people into the association; we need to train them is very key to our association.”

Wole Shadare