After two years of promoting Nigerian Arts, Culture and travel-related stories in print, Nigeria’s leading travel magazine waka-about has launched its online version, www.wakaabout.net.

“waka-about’s primary objective since its launch in 2011 has always been to show readers and tourists alike the various tourist assets in Nigeria and the fascinating aspects of Nigerian life,” says Pelu Awofeso, the publication’s Managing Editor and winner of the CNN/Multichoice African Journalists Awards in the tourism category.

“In a country with as limitless a potential for tourism development as Nigeria is, going online and reaching out to the world’s travelling community is just the right step to take, and we’re only too happy to be a positive voice on a global platform and help with improving the perception that the world has of Nigeria,” Awofeso adds.

According to the season travel writer, wakaabout online will regularly feature stories on indigenous Nigerian festivals, recommended tourist attractions, travel-book reviews and interviews with tourists who have visited Nigeria and have positive stories to share, among other segments. There will also be a dedicated link to a hotels directory to help intending visitors make guided choices about where to stay when they arrive.

“Over the years, as our writers and photographers have travelled around Nigeria on assignments, they come across lots of foreign tourists who obviously have enjoyed their time in Nigeria,” says Awofeso, who himself has travelled to nearly every state in Nigeria as a travel correspondent and freelance writer. “More often than not, the tourists are excited beyond words. These are the stories the world needs to read about. And those are some of the stories we share on wakaabout online,” he adds.

In the past few years, state governments in Nigeria have started to take the subject of tourism seriously. They are consistently looking inwards to evaluate their various tangible and intangible tourist assets with a view to supplementing their Internally Generated Revenues (IGR).

According to Awofeso, it is high time that this happened in a country blessed with an amazing variety of physical, historical and cultural gems. “In the long run, our plan is to make wakaabout online the first port of call for tourists planning a visit to Nigeria,” says Awofeso. “We also aim to make the site a watering hole for Nigerians at home and in the Diaspora, who need to constantly connect with their heritage.”

•Photo: waka-about Managing Editor Pelu Awofeso.