By Joan Odafe
Kweku Tandoh, Chief Operating Officer, African Table Tennis Federation, has urged Nigeria to leverage sporting events to drive tourism and economic development.
Tandoh made the call while speaking on “Hosting Sporting Events and Their Impact on Tourism” at the ongoing 22nd Akwaaba African Travel Market in Lagos.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the three-day expo, organised by Akwaaba Travel Market Ltd., is holding from Sept. 13 to Sept. 15.
The event brings together tourism stakeholders, including travel agents, tour operators, hospitality brands, exhibitors and tourism boards from across Africa.
Exhibitors include The Gambia, Carnival Calabar, Eko Hotel and Suites, Air Peace, Cinderella Travel and Tours, Ghana Tourism Authority, Accra City Hotel and The Peninsula Resort and Golf Club.
Others are Bertab Journeys, Lisa Tours, The Royal Senchi Hotel and Resort, Azalai Hotel, Labadi Beach Hotel, Ethiopian Airlines, Air Tanzania, Cross River State Tourism Bureau, Ekiti State Tourism Bureau, National Association of Tour Operators and Gabon Tourism Board.
Tandoh said sporting events attracted athletes, coaches and officials from different destinations, creating opportunities for tourism-related businesses.
“Those people will require accommodation, they will require food, they will require entertainment, and so on and so forth,” he said.
According to him, countries are increasingly using sporting events as platforms for tourism, economic development and infrastructure improvement, rather than merely as competitions.
“But now, we’re finding out that it’s more like, how do we turn this sporting event into a tourism and economic development platform?” he said.
“The benefits of sporting events extended beyond stadiums to hotels, airlines, restaurants, retailers, artisans, tour operators and the media.
“That’s not where it ends,” he said.
Tandoh, citing the 2012 National Sports Festival in Lagos, said Nigeria needed to change its approach by deliberately using sporting events to promote destinations.
He said boat rides and tours organised for athletes during the festival exposed them to tourism attractions and encouraged some participants to consider returning to Lagos after the event.
He also cited the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa, saying sporting events provided opportunities for destination marketing because competitions were broadcast locally, nationally and internationally.
Tandoh urged countries hosting sporting events to ensure that infrastructure developed for such events remained useful to communities after the competitions.
“Then after that event, you find that there’s nobody else using that infrastructure,” he said.
He said organisers should prioritise facilities that could serve communities beyond the duration of the events.
According to him, the success of sporting events should not be measured only by attendance but also by their tourism, economic, destination-development and sporting outcomes.
“Hosting an event is not automatically profitable,” he said.
Tandoh proposed a five-point framework including bid, build, package, market and legacy, for linking sports with tourism.
Citing Côte d’Ivoire and Cape Town as examples, he said Côte d’Ivoire recorded significant tourism and economic benefits from hosting the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations, while Cape Town had successfully packaged sporting events throughout the year.
“Sports is a tourism asset and the final whistle of your sporting event should not mark the end of the benefit of a sporting event; it should be the beginning,” he said.
Tandoh urged Nigeria to deliberately convert sports spectators into tourists who would return to destinations, thereby creating lasting tourism and economic value from sporting events.
NAN reports that the Akwaaba African Travel Market is leveraging the 2027 AFCON to deepen collaboration between African sports and tourism through the African Tour Operators Summit.
The summit is expected to bring together East and West African tour operators to develop travel packages around the tournament, with the aim of promoting sports tourism, trade and intra-African travel.(NAN)
Edited by Emmanuel Afonne