Festivals, Marathons and the activities bringing Tourists to Lagos in 2017

The year always brings exciting new challenges to conquer and feats to achieve. That’s the beauty of the human spirit. We want to be better than we were last time around, we want to do more, win more, and create more. One of the cities associated with this defying quality of the human spirit is Lagos. Aside from being one of the biggest in Africa in terms of its economic strength, Lagos is also a giant playground, host to the rich and affluent and to every other regular Mutiu who is trying to play as hard as he works.

Lagos City Marathon 2017

Happening on the 11^th of February 2017, The Lagos City Marathon is expected to draw 50,000 participants from all of Africa and around the world. Registration has commenced for the event since November 2016, and top global marathoners have endorsed the event and have confirmed participation as well. Starting at 7.30am, the starting point of the marathon will be at Western Avenue, in front of the National Stadium Surulere, opposite Teslim Balogun Stadium and the finish will be in front of Eko Atlantic City, Victoria Island. For spectators and participants, accommodation in Lagos can be booked early to get the best rooms available, of course no one comes to Lagos and leaves without having an experience of the city life, so we expect that you take care your accommodation needs for before and after the Lagos City Marathon.

Felabration 2017

This annual music concert that celebrates the life and music of Afrobeat legend, Fela Anikulapo Kuti, would take a special tone this year as it would mark the 20^th anniversary of the death of the music icon. Slated for the 9^th to 15^th of October, this year’s event is sure to witness performances by Nigeria’s biggest pop stars and bands, as well as music lovers from all over the world.

Lagos @ 50

This year, Lagos would turn 50. And plans are in gear to mark the Golden jubilee with a lot of fanfare. You can tell already if you visit www.lagos@50.org.ng. The event would be marked with the Lagos Festival, A Boat Regatta, Symposiums and lectures, literary readings, art, culture and tech expos and a whole lot more. The event would draw investors and stakeholders from around the world, blacks in the diaspora, as well as tourists who are bound to be enchanted by the spectacle of the celebrations put in place.

Lagos Theatre Festival 2017

Organized by the British Council the Lagos Theatre Festival will span 6 days from the 28^th of February to the 5^th of March featuring over 500 artistes performing across 20 venues. The stage is set, and it is as we say, going to be lit. As usual the festival would bring a throng of eager foreigners, some visiting our dear Lagos for the first time, and some old timers to the special Lagos hospitality that we never fail to endear tourists with. Accommodation in Lagos for this festival can be sorted here and here.

Lagos International Trade Fair

The 10 day event organized by the Lagos State Chamber of Commerce and Industry attracts local and foreign exhibitors to the Lagos International Trade Fair, a forum that promotes and boosts trade and commerce in Nigeria and surrounding African countries. The Trade Fair is hosted either at Tafawa Balewa Square in the heart of Lagos Island or the Lagos International Trade Fair Complex along Lagos Badagry Expressway, Lagos.

Why Nigerians Need to Change Their Perception about Hotels

For a people easily split into Northerners and Southerners, Nigerians can still be held together by their sense of morality and religiosity. The genuineness of this though is a subject for another day, but in my casual observation there is a taboo that seems to be attached to the hospitality industry with men who check into hotel rooms, considered straying husbands, and women seen with hotel room keys as unfaithful wives. What is worse is if you are a young girl. I do not have to say what already pops up in your head. And for young Nigerian boys, the tag of being a cyber-criminal doesn’t come off easily.  Why do these tags get attached to these demography of people? Why is it hard to imagine that a man might have an argument with his wife and it gets to the point where he needs time to be alone to cool off and so he checks into a hotel? Or he may be on business from another state, and since is flight is not until the next morning it only makes sense to check into a hotel for the night. Or that a young female who also happens to be a software developer needs an accommodation in Ikeja for the weekend where she can work uninterrupted and where there is 24 hours electricity and internet service that is very good. There are many valid reasons why people could book a hotel, and it rarely has to be sinister or filled with ulterior motives.

Hotel owners and managers have in the past attributed the low patronage of their business to this mentality among Nigerians.

 Image source: www.commons.wikimedia.org

“White people don’t think like that” says an hotel manager who chose to remain unnamed “They come in here for business or sightseeing, they check into an hotel, its normal for them as it is for them over there, nobody is raising eyebrows or calling your Pastor to report you. But here in Nigeria, we have the mentality that if a man is checking into a hotel he is lodging with his girlfriend, he is unfaithful to his wife. If a woman does it then she is a shame to her husband”

It would also be necessary for people to be aware that like going into a restaurant to eat, or like taking the kids to an amusement park or taking a significant other to a fancy date, checking in to a hotel room for the weekend is also a good way to treat yourself. And we should try it sometime. Clean sheets. Hot running water, satellite television, room service, internet access all these at affordable rates. Take a central place in Lagos like Ikeja for example where the competition is high, there are lots of cheap hotels in Ikeja that provide these to their guests.

Image Courtesy Logbaby.com

“Nigerians work so hard for their money, I don’t see why anyone would want to judge someone who goes for a weekend getaway in a moderate hotel or a resort, just to relax yourself. You don’t even have to go with anyone. I do it sometimes and switch off my phones, because I don’t want disturbance. And with time, I find that it is good for my health.” Says Sunday Oriaku who is a businessman who imports building materials from China.

Moreover hotels provide more than just accommodation. They often cater to business travelers and businessmen by having conference rooms and business meeting rooms in their buildings. So where their conference room is booked for a week long seminar that brings people from all over the country it only seems the wise thing to book rooms in the same hotel or a nearby hotel for the sake of convenience.

It may take a while. But we may eventually get there. The secret may be for people not to straddle others with their own notion or idea of morality. While it may be true that some married persons do use hotel getaways for trysts and shenanigans, humans are naturally wired to pursue happiness and fulfillment and if they happen not to find it in their home or marriage it is almost natural to seek this happiness elsewhere. The point really is, the hotel industry and business must be seen as providing an important service within the economy, jobs, entertainment, accommodation for stranded persons who are traveling or out of their home base for one business or the other, to then turn our noses at people who patronize hotels when they need to is a faux morality that needs to stop.

So, I’m sitting here writing this and hoping that if I ask this Yoruba mummy beside me where I can find affordable hotels in Lekki she isn’t going to eyeball me and question my home training.