By Felix Iwebunor
The Nigeria Association of Tour Operators (NATOP) celebrated the 2026 World Tourism Day (WTD) with training in digital technology, destination promotion and domestic tourism awareness.
In the South West Zone, nearly 200 tour operators gathered in Lagos for a special training focused on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its application in tourism, equipping operators with digital tools to improve their businesses and destination marketing.
Also, in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory and the Northern Zone, in collaboration with Naija Adventurers, staged a colourful tourism awareness walk and hike to the centre of Nigeria.
The celebration also spread to the South-South Zone, where members marked the day with a destination tour, alongside other activities to commemorate WTD.
In line with the theme of this year’s celebration, “Digital Agenda and Artificial Intelligence to Redesign Tourism,” a large turnout of members participated in the Lagos training on AI and its application in tour operations.
The NATOP President, Bolaji Mustapha, explained that the location and training were planned to train members on tour business and digital tourism promotion, using different AI tools, among others, to grow their businesses.
According to her, the training will enable the tour operators to create more content to digitally tell destination stories with AI, and also use the tool for expression.
Explaining the choice of Ziba Beach Resort for the training and celebration, Mustapha said: “We always attach World Tourism Day to a tourism site.”
She noted that the nature of the area and community make Ziba a tourism site, and “we want to explore, and of course the resort had newly launched its third phase.”
So, the association used the opportunity to look at the rooms and how members could sell the destination, showcasing the resort as actually in Nigeria, not Zanzibar, she stated, adding that the venue was also an opportunity for a facility tour of the Ziba Beach Resort.
“As tour operators who are willing to tell the good story of Nigeria, we need to bring ourselves up to speed, and align with the digital revolution,” Mustapha said.
“Let everybody go digital, because we also see that content creators are taking our business. So, we want to align it with what they do. We are the ones that understand the business and we’ll be able to tell the story better, so that anybody coming to Nigeria will be able to discover Nigeria with the experts.”
Also commenting on the training, the NATOP Vice President, South West, and chairman of the zone’s WTD organising committee, Mrs Wonuola Olatunde-Lamidi, stated that many of the members still have a lot to learn about the tour business, including how to create packages.
“Many don’t understand what it is to create a tour package, and when you have people who are not well-trained in an industry, the industry will not grow. The people will also not have enough earning power to do many things,” she explained.
She stated that people want to tour a destination because of the way it is portrayed, adding that tour operators can actually decide where people go by marketing the benefits of that destination to them.
