UAE Visa Ban: Travel Agents Lament, Rue Financial Loss

Nigerian travel agents have lamented the recent visa ban slammed on Nigerians visiting the United Arab Emirates (UAE), by the Emirate.

LEADERSHIP reports that UAE, on Friday, announced visa restriction on Nigerians seeking to visit Dubai.

The ban was conveyed In a notice issued to the country’s trade partners in Nigeria, including travel agents.

“All Dubai applications submitted are now rejected”, the notice stated, adding that the rejections will be sent in batches.

The rejections, according to the notice, “are general for Nigerians and approvals are on hold at the moment.”

It equally specified that there would be no refund for rejected applications.

“Kindly advise your clients to resubmit C2=A0 applications when the issue is resolved between both governments”, the notice to the Nigerian travel agents further declared.

However, speaking with LEADERSHIP, the vice president, Lagos Zone of the National Association of Nigeria Travel Agencies (NANTA), Yinka Folabi, said it’s a major loss for travel agents because Dubai is both a tourist and business destination for Nigerians.

He, however said he believed there will be diplomatic discussions between the government of Nigeria and the UAE to resolve the impasse.

Folabi, also declined to comment on the number of applications they received daily applying for visa and visit to the UAE, but confirmed that UAE is a major destination for Nigerians.

“I don’t have data on number of applications in process neither do I have data on the number per day but I know that it will be a lot because I know that Dubai is a major tourism and business destination for Nigerians.

“It’s a business loss and it’s obviously a diplomatic issue because anything around visa is a diplomatic issue it has to do with the relationship between two countries and there will be diplomatic discussion between the two government at the highest level.”

Collaborating Falobi’s assertion, the public relations officer, Western Zone of NANTA, Olaleye Ajibade, said the visa ban will affect businesses, but continued that the ban wasn’t for legitimate businessmen or tourists.

According to him, there is high traffic of Nigerians visiting the UAE for business and tourism.

“There are lot of atrocities that Nigerian citizens are committing in UAE which make the UAE place visa ban on the country. I think it didn’t affect everybody but affected those that doesn’t have visa requirements or whose intention to travel to UAE aren’t genuine. If you are a genuine tourist or businessman, the country will gladly give you Visa.

“You are right about affecting our business, but we need to look at this holistically because I believe this visa ban will change many things, though we we have high traffic to UAE for vacation and holidays, but yet atrocities committed by Nigerians in that country is high,” he ended.