By: Kebba Ansu Manneh, In Lagos, Abuja
Africa does not lack destinations, stories or extraordinary tourism assets. What it has long lacked is the connectivity and investment architecture needed to unlock them and drive development, West Africa Tourism Organization (WATO) Chief Executive Officer Ola Wright said on Wednesday.
Wright spoke at the opening of AeroWest 2026 at the Marriott Hotel in Ikeja, Lagos. The three-day summit brought together travel operators, hoteliers, airlines, investors, academics and government officials to examine how aviation and tourism can be developed together across West and Central Africa.
“Africa does not lack destinations. Africa does not lack stories. Africa does not lack extraordinary tourism assets,” Wright said. “What we have lacked for far too long is the connectivity and investment architecture required to unlock them, and that is why AeroWest matters.”
She argued that aviation and tourism cannot be planned in isolation. Visitors must be able to reach destinations, she said, while airlines cannot treat passenger numbers as an end in themselves. Connectivity, she added, is about linking economies, communities, cultures, investment and opportunity.
West and Central Africa possess world-class cultural landscapes, biodiversity, coastlines, islands, heritage routes, cuisine and living cultures, many of which remain little known even to Africans themselves, Wright said. She cited the Sugo area of Plateau State in Nigeria as a vast, under-recognized heritage landscape. She described the walls of Benin as among the world’s longest historic fortifications, still largely untapped.
Sierra Leone, Ghana and São Tomé and Príncipe, she added, have beaches, ecosystems and heritage sites that could draw far more visitors if properly connected.
Wright sketched a regional itinerary — Lagos to Accra, Accra to Freetown, Freetown to Dakar, Dakar to Malabo and on to São Tomé — built around heritage, culture, cuisine, music, fashion, the diaspora, islands and wildlife. The future of African tourism, she said, will be decided not only by the beauty of destinations but by how accessible, connected, investable and marketable they become.
Jet Afrique Aviation Services Ltd Managing Director and Chief Executive Theodore Obioro Chikelu said the summit came at a critical moment. West and Central Africa comprise more than 20 countries and more than 500 million people, yet aviation and tourism operate well below potential and too often in isolation.
Air transport in the region carries less than 3 percent of global traffic, he said, while fewer than 30 percent of more than 400 possible city pairs across ECOWAS and ECCAS have direct flights. Operating costs for jet fuel, taxes and aircraft leasing remain 25 to 30 percent above global averages. Tourism already contributes more than $18 billion directly to regional GDP. It supports millions of jobs, but visa friction, limited hotel inventory and poor last-mile transport still hinder travel between cities such as Accra, Abidjan and Douala.
Chikelu pointed to progress, including Cape Town Convention compliance, new bilateral air service agreements and the African Development Bank’s $7 billion aviation program. He called for modern airports, regional maintenance facilities, reliable power, roads and digital payments, and urged investors to treat aviation and tourism as viable, not excessively risky.
Lagos State Secretary to the Government Bimbola Salu-Hundeyin commended the organizers for choosing Lagos and said no airport, airline or government can build a tourism economy alone. West Africa has extraordinary assets, a young population and creative energy, she said, but needs more routes, better infrastructure, smarter technology, private capital and cross-border collaboration. Lagos, she added, is ready to serve as a marketplace for partnerships.
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo formally opened the summit.
