By Cleopatra Eki
The Principal Executive Flyzone Tourism, Mr. Awomoyi Ayodeji was among other professionals honoured as ‘Ambassador’ by the ECOWAS Youth Council in appreciation of his laudable antecedents of dedication, hard work and diligence in the area of service to humanity and commendable works as an advocate and relentless crusader of promoting development of the African youth. The event was held penultimate Sunday at the Oriental Hotel, Victoria Island, Lagos.
Speaking at the sideline of the ceremony, Mr. Ayodeji said that the award was a deserved honour as it recognises his hard work, dedication and commitment in all read of works.
“This is connected to my laudable antecedents of dedication, hard work and diligence in the area of service to humanity and commendable works as an advocate and relentless crusader of promoting development of the African youth,” he said.
The honour is coming barely a year after he was honoured as Akwaaba Travel Personality of the year, and a member of the 100 Tourism Personality in Nigeria and a member of the 40 under 40 Nigeria.
He described Akwaaba African Travel Market as a strategic platform that continues to promote business opportunities for travel agencies, airlines, hotels, tour operators among others stakeholders, adding that Akwaaba brings different tourism boards, embassies, tour operators and travel agents together for business opportunities.
“The first thing is that there is no business without connection. When you have a product and the people do not know about it, then am not sure you can do anything. Even a bad product that is marketed well will sell more than a good product that is not well marketed. Akwaaba has helped travel agencies, airlines, hotels, tour operators to connect with one another.
Akwaaba is a platform that brings different tourism boards, embassies, tour operators and travel agents together for good business connections and networking. I have been attending Akwaaba for a long time now,” he said.
Mr. Ayodeji stated that what Flyzone does is to connect travel agencies with countries as well for their visas, noting that applying for visas of other countries requires lot of documentations.
“We arrange many things for the tour operators to ensure they are fine, l because we have relationship with some of these countries based on our algorithms, friendship and business relationship, so is easier for us to connect with these countries and their tourism boards than for a travel agent to connect directly. So I will say we are like a middleman between Nigerian travel agents and tourism boards of other countries of the world,” he added.
He dismissed as rumour the wrong notion that Flyzone is taking over jobs of travel agents, saying that his firm will never take over the job of travel agents. According to him, his firm only serves an interface or middleman between countries’ tourism boards and travel agents.
“We are not taking over the travel agents business. What we are doing is business to business. Travel agents come to us and we go to tourism boards and supply the travel agents the travel products they need,” he said.
Mr. Ayodeji identified visa processing as Flyzone’s unique selling point and niche, noting that he prefers to sustain that niche. He explained that because of ongoing business relationship between Flyzone and countries’ tourism boards’ visa processing and documentation is much easier to achieve. He also stressed the significance of trust and honesty, which he said, are the catchphrase at Flyzone.
