Feasibility of Nigeria as a tourist destination for Dutch tourists



Executive Summary

This report focuses on the extent to which Nigeria's tourism offer matches the needs and wants of Dutch tourists interested in travelling to Africa. The commissioning client is Skyline travel and cargo agency based in Amsterdam. Skyline services want to expand on their customer base and offer additional services including organised tours to Nigeria especially for Dutch tourists. This prompted the researcher to commission a study that will provide insight into the factors that influence Dutch tourist to visit Nigeria.

The research's central question “To what extent Nigeria's tourism offer matches the needs and wants of Dutch tourists” was intended to find out the influencing factors that motivates Dutch tourist to travel to Africa and which offers or activities attracts them the most. To get answers to the central question, three research methods were used, desk research, in- depth interview and survey questions.

In the research, three different theories were used i.e. The Richie & Crouch models of destination sustainability, the SWOT analysis on tourism inventories in Nigeria which was used to find out the present leisure possibilities including tourism resources in Nigeria, and Maslow's hierarchies of needs. Theoretical tools were used to put together all the in-depth interview and survey questions respectively with a view of using them as guide in evaluating the findings of response.

At the analysis stage of the research, information collected from the in-depth interviews with Nigeria stakeholders and selected Dutch tour companies in Netherlands were scrutinized while SPSS was used to analyze the result of the responses of the Dutch tourists who responded to the questionnaire.

In order to test the reliability of the results, Cronbach's Coefficient Alpha test was used. This test is appropriate for estimating internal reliability and indicates the degree to which instrument items are homogeneous and reflect the same underlying construct

A key finding from the survey questions is that 46% of (230) Dutch tourists who were going to other Africa destination showed their willingness to visit Nigeria if the same attractions exit there. The tour operators interviewed also showed willingness to market Nigeria as a new destination to their clients provided they have adequate information on the destination. Almost 48% of (230) Dutch tourists have more knowledge of oil business in Nigeria than any tourists activity.

Though, this has not been sufficiently pointed out by the interviewed parties but through desk research it became obvious that Nigeria is suffering from frequent religious crisis, conflicts in the Niger Delta, and other social ills. These have combined to foster a bad image on Nigeria in the international scene. The respondents also mentioned some issues that are of concern to them in terms of African destinations. They included fear of inadequate attractions, security, no tour operator, and lack of information; these concerns are however not peculiar to Nigeria.

The key conclusions of this report which centered on the extent to which Nigeria's tourism offer matches the needs and wants of Dutch tourists interested in travelling to ...