NIGERIA’S TRAVEL BUSINESS MAN OF THE YEAR AWARD GOES TO WAKANOW FOUNDER OBINNA EKEZIE
(Posted 01st March 2017)
The Founder and Group Managing Director of Wakanow, West Africa’s leading online travel agency with global ambitions, Mr. Obinna Ekezie has been named Travel Man of the Year at the 2016 ATQ Travel Personality awards scheduled to be held in March this year. Obinna is a former NBA player and also heavily involved in setting up Africa’s basketball pro league.
Organized by African Travel Quarterly, a member of the African Travel Media Group, in conjunction with Akwaaba Travel Market, this annual award is renowned as one of the most recognized platforms for assessing corporate and individual contribution to the growth of the Nigerian travel and tourism sector.
According to the organizers, the Wakanow boss won the keenly contested award on account of his relentless drive in building one of Africa’s largest and most respected travel brands with subsidiaries already in place in the UK, Dubai and US. The company’s large-scale global expansion roll-out, which gained momentum in 2016, was adjudged as a bold and audacious move in the face of Nigeria’s gloomy economy.
Mr. Obinna is expected to join fellow winners, including the Executive Governor of Cross River State, Mr. Ben Ayade and other leading stakeholders in the African travel arena at the 2017 Port Harcourt Bantaba for the official award presentation and gala.
In a statement signed by the Chief Marketing Officer of Wakanow, Ms. Victoria Onwubiko, the management of the company said that the award is a testament to Wakanow’s innovative approach to delivering state of the art travel solutions to their markets, leveraging on its high-end technology and excellent customer service models.
She said: ‘As a company, we are very excited by this award particularly because it is a confirmation of our prime position as Nigeria’s first and largest travel company. We are further buoyed by the understanding that our efforts in building one of Africa’s most iconic travel conglomerates have continued to attract recognition from far and wide, reinforcing our leadership as a respected player in the African travel space. We do not take these swarming recognitions for granted, and we will continue to raise the bar many notches higher, especially in creating superior consumer experiences for our valued customers and stakeholders‘.
Wakanow, which already operates commercial offices in Nigeria and Ghana as well as service outlets in Dubai and the UK, recently announced plans to officially commence operations in the UK and expand its fast-growing portfolio of travel services to the European market with special focus on African travels powered by her DestinationsAfrica(R) platform. Next in the cross hairs of the company are the East African markets with Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Tanzania high on the agenda for the establishment of country offices in 2017.
Wakanow has become a rising star on the African Tourism scene and is today Nigeria’s No. 1 travel booking company. The company has won many awards, including the Tony Elumelu’s fastest growing company awards, a host of travel industry awards and more recently, the CNBC Business Leader of the Year award which went to the Founder and Managing Director, Mr. Obinna Ekezie. Wakanow has strong affiliations with hundreds of hotels and dozens of airlines globally and has facilitated over 800,000 travel bookings since inception in 2008. Wakanow today represents the rapidly changing the face of travel in Africa.
