The Federal Government has thrown its weight behind a new 100-Day Tourism Calendar designed to turn Nigeria’s festive season into a major economic opportunity and help unlock a projected $100 billion tourism and creative economy.
The calendar, powered by MyCityApp and MyLagosApp, brings together festivals, concerts, cultural events, lifestyle experiences and other tourism activities across the country on a single digital platform.
The initiative was unveiled at the Ember2Remember National Stakeholders’ Conference in Victoria Island, Lagos, according to Dr Nneka Anibeze, Senior Special Assistant to the Minister of Tourism, Arts, Culture and Creative Economy, Hannatu Musawa.
Speaking at the event, Musawa said the government wanted to move beyond treating the September-to-December festive period simply as a season of celebration and instead use it to generate jobs, attract investments and create business opportunities.
She said the initiative was aimed at deliberately organising, packaging, promoting and monetising one of the most economically active periods in Nigeria’s calendar.
“Every visitor creates a value chain — from aviation and transportation to hotels, restaurants, entertainment, retail, technology, artisans, and local communities. Within these value chains are opportunities for businesses, jobs, investment, and livelihoods,” the minister said.
Musawa urged state governments, event organisers, tourism operators, hotels and other private-sector players to upload their events scheduled between September and December onto the national calendar.
According to her, the platform will serve as a single destination where Nigerians, members of the diaspora and international visitors can discover tourism and cultural experiences available across the country.
“We want to create a single, credible, and compelling platform through which Nigerians, the diaspora, and international visitors can discover what is happening across Nigeria,” she said.
Musawa added that the platform would enable people in cities such as London, New York, Johannesburg and Toronto to easily discover and plan for experiences across Nigeria.
She commended the Chief Executive Officer of MyCityApp, Ifeoma Chukwu, for driving the initiative and called for wider participation by state governments and private-sector operators.
Earlier, Chukwu said Nigeria could realistically build a $100 billion tourism economy if its cultural assets and visitor experiences were properly packaged, promoted and monetised.
She said the experiences of major global economies demonstrated the enormous economic potential of tourism.
“When we speak about building a $100 billion tourism economy, it may sound ambitious. But globally, the evidence tells us it is achievable,” Chukwu said.
“The question is not whether a $100 billion tourism economy is possible. It is: why not Nigeria?” she added.
The initiative comes as the Federal Government intensifies efforts to diversify the economy beyond oil by expanding the contribution of tourism, culture and the creative industries to national development.
Nigeria boasts numerous cultural festivals, historical attractions, entertainment events and creative enterprises. However, the sector has continued to grapple with fragmented promotion, inadequate infrastructure, weak visitor data and poor coordination among operators.
The new digital calendar is expected to help address some of these challenges by bringing events and experiences from different states and cities together on one platform, while improving visibility for tourism operators and destinations.
