Travel agency officials to train Immigration officers on service delivery at airports

National President, National Association of Nigeria Travel Agencies (NANTA), Mr. Bankole Bernard, has said that the association will train officials of the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) and other personnel on customer service delivery at the airport.

Bernard who spoke during the Aviation Round Table Quarterly Breakfast Meeting at Goldview Hotel, GRA,Ikeja, Lagos, further decried the way passengers and customers at the airports were treated across the country said that most officials were not adequately trained on what was expected of them in dealing with customers.

His concern was hinged on the identity and branding implications for the nation, giving that the airport is often times the first port of call for tourists coming into the country.

He alleged that most officials lobby to be posted to the airport and in turn, they give gratification to their superior for such a gesture, stressing that most officials do not even understand what tourism entailed not to talk of attending to passengers.

“We need to educate our officials at the airports. We need to train them on what customer service is all about. A friend of mine in East Africa said that they were training their officials at the airport to make them understand what tourism is.

“But in Nigeria, reverse is the case. An official can be a mirror to the type of country a passenger is visiting through the treatment he gets at the airport. Imagine the way some officials talk rudely to passengers without considering that such passengers are their customers,” Bernard stressed.

The NANTA boss pointed out that Nigeria is the only country when a passenger wants to travel, he or she will be thinking about all the hurdles he will have to go through not to mention the attitudes of airport officials who would be out there to treat them with disdain.

While accepting the offer of the NANTA boss, Deputy Controller of Immigration, Mr. Segun Adegoke said that they were pleased by the initiative.