1. AFRICANTOURISMMARKET.COM By Ben Omoakin Oguntala ben.oguntala@Africantourismmarket.com Twitter: @afrotourismUnleashing Africas tourism potential by converting African natural assets into tourism markets.

2. www.africantourismmarket.com | Info@africantourismmarket.comContents Introduction ............................................................................................................................................ 2 High level overview ................................................................................................................................. 3 Our business overview ............................................................................................................................ 4 Creating opportunities from natural assets in Africa? ............................................................................ 5 African Diaspora with interest in developing Tourism in Africa ............................................................. 6 Suppliers with products and services for the tourism sector ................................................................. 7 Benefits to African Tourism Boards ........................................................................................................ 8 Benefits to International suppliers ......................................................................................................... 9 Mapping supplier solutions to tourism opportunities in Africa............................................................ 10 Addressing youth unemployment in Africa .......................................................................................... 11 How it works ......................................................................................................................................... 13 About us ................................................................................................................................................ 14 Getting started ...................................................................................................................................... 15 Contact us ............................................................................................................................................. 151 3. www.africantourismmarket.com | Info@africantourismmarket.comIntroduction Africa is full of natural assets that are capable of being converted into Tourism markets and can be used to generate commerce at micro economic levels across Africa. Africas history, culture, landscape, language and Art are natural assets that are capable of being converted into Tourism markets and these are indiscriminately available to every community in Africa. There are two sectors that Africa performs remarkably well in, in relation to international acceptance; they are Tourism and the Arts. Exhibition at the World Travel Market 2013 in London showed the African representatives were on an equal footing with their European and International counterparts in terms of presentation and they attracted equal amount of interest from the attendees. This indicates that Tourism as a sector is attractive to the International community and as a result, business cases for Tourism development are likely to be warmly received than any other sector. This is further supported by the recent rise in African Diaspora Professionals economic interest in Africa as their motherland. Our premise is very simple, to convert natural assets in Africa into Tourism markets and work with every Tourist Board in Africa interested in attracting investment into their Tourism sector. We also engage International suppliers to align their products and services to the development opportunities in the Tourism sector in Africa. www.Africantourismmarket.com is a technology portal designed to assist African Tourism Boards and Ministries of Tourism as well as Cultural or Community groups to showcase the natural assets in their communities to the International supplier market as well as the African Diaspora community looking for development opportunities in Africa.2 4. www.africantourismmarket.com | Info@africantourismmarket.comHigh level overview The diagram below describes how we assist African Tourism Boards to convert their natural assets into Tourism markets as well as engage the African Diaspora and address youth unemployment in Africa.3 5. www.africantourismmarket.com | Info@africantourismmarket.comOur business overview AfricanTourismMarket.com is a project designed to assist African Trade Boards, Ministries of Culture and Tourism as well as Community groups in Africa, in converting their natural assets into a viable Tourism markets. We aim to achieve this by using state of the art of technology to highlight the natural assets (including Royal Families) in Africa to the world and the International Tourism sector in order to draw their investment interest into the African Tourism market. Our aim is to ensure Africas natural assets are brought to the attention of International Tourists and to expose local businesses to the International community. African is endowed with culture and traditions that are often encapsulated in its Royal families, the cultures and traditions of the Royal families are capable of generating tourism if they can be exposed to the world. We are a UK based organisation and we would like to celebrate the African Royal families as we celebrate the British Royal families in the UK. Our target is therefore to ensure each African Royal family is provided with a platform for it to exhibit its depth of culture and heritage in a bid to drive in tourism to their community. Tourism is one of the quickest means of generating trade and development directly into rural communities in Africa from African Diaspora Professionals as well as from International visitors.4 6. www.africantourismmarket.com | Info@africantourismmarket.comCreating opportunities from natural assets in Africa? The diagram below shows cultural sites in Africa, these are natural assets siting within communities in Africa. Our aim is to activate such cultural sites; tourism does not only have to be physical visits to the sites but can also exist virtually as well as be of interest to those interested in research and development as well as other commercial needs. Our plan is therefore to activate each of such cultural sites along with the African Tourist Boards, use African students in carrying out the research into the local businesses around the cultural sites, identify the development needs and build a business case for the development. All of these are posted online with the aim facilitating development, For example, identifying 20 development opportunities across various sectors. We would then map those development opportunities to International suppliers and the African Diaspora Professionals interested in developing such opportunities. The student on the ground would be best placed to gain employment by providing initial assessment tasks and verification or investigation on behalf of the clients. These cultural sites represent opportunities across Africa and employment for the students in the areas. Vast amount of subsequent opportunities can also be created after the initial opportunity is established. Every African Diaspora Professional is likely to be interested in the development of opportunities in their own country, to this end; we make the site available to all Diaspora Professionals. Allowing each country to focus on their own development means each cultural site will be able to benefit directly from International suppliers. The picture above shows over 40 cultural sites, assuming we initiate 5 development opportunities per site, which will mean 200 development opportunities if 5 students are engage on each project, we would have created 1000 jobs in Africa in less than a quarter. That will be 1000 youth employment from something as simple as a natural asset that has been there since the beginning of time. The community directly benefits from the advantages of developing the cultural sites and as a result, there is an invested interest in maintaining the development. With 400 projects, 2000 jobs can be created.5 7. www.africantourismmarket.com | Info@africantourismmarket.comAfrican Diaspora with interest in developing Tourism in Africa We have focused on the African Diaspora community because of their empathy towards development in Africa and their access to disposable income as well as interest to have alternative revenue streams whilst keeping their day jobs. Recent reports have indicated the revenue from African Diaspora to Africa has surpassed Foreign Direct Investment.The African Diaspora Professionals frequent Africa and have local connections in the rural communities, they also often have local nationality status which means they are able to launch businesses locally without much red tape. Their connection to the rural Royal families is also of importance as this will provide access to the natural assets that need to be converted into a Tourism markets. Effectively, the African Diaspora Professional provides an International supplier with effective collaboration that can provide localisation capability to the suppliers products and services. An African Diaspora Professional will be able to subscribe to www.africantourismmarket.com and upload their development projects in Africa. For each project they load up, they will be able to specify the types of suppliers they are interested in as well as the local skillsets they need. Our web intelligence service would then map their products to the suppliers as well as the students; the aim is to promote collaborations in implementing the projects in Africa. The African Diaspora Professional would therefore be using www.africantourismmarket.com as a platform for finding out which suppliers and on ground resources are available and applicable for their products in Africa.6 8. www.africantourismmarket.com | Info@africantourismmarket.comSuppliers with products and services for the tourism sector We also focus on the International suppliers because they have products and services that can transform the African tourism market and have advanced technology that Africa can benefit from. There are numerous suppliers with products and services applicable to the African market but due to fear of engaging Africa and cost, many feel unable to engage the African market. This is the purpose of our engaging the African Diaspora Professionals as a means of brokering the technology touching down in Africa. The supplier will have the assurance of dealing with an African Diaspora Professional, who is likely to be a registered entity in Europe or the USA.Suppliers will be able to subscribe to www.africantourismmarket.com and list their products and services. Our web intelligence engine would match such products and services to natural assets posted by African Tourism Boards as needing development, as well as to African Diaspora professionals projects in Africa. Furthermore, there will be engagement of local chambers of commerce as well as association of local businesses. The supplier would then be able to provide a proposal describing how their products and services can assist the African Tourism Board and the African Diaspora Professionals project to convert the natural asset into a Tourism market. This is vital, as it not only places the suppliers products and services with the natural asset but also describes how the product or service can achieve such an objective. A suppliers use of www.africantourismmarket.com is therefore a marketing tool for product placement and also acts as catalogue for African Tourism Boards to select which suppliers best fits their requirements and objectives. 7 9. www.africantourismmarket.com | Info@africantourismmarket.comBenefits to African Tourism Boards Some of the benefits we have include the following: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.Showcase Royal family per African country List the tourist attractions in your country currently doing well to attract more clients List the tourist attractions that could benefit from more investments and development Attract Tour operators or package holiday firms to the natural asset Allow local businesses to sell their merchandise via our e-commerce facility Use our social media facilities to generate interest in the tourist areas Use Geo location to gain world attention to the natural assets Convert local natural assets into tourism interests Benefit from our customer insight analytics Participate in our annual exhibition to showcase tourist destinations in Africa Attract investment partners to develop natural assets into tourist attractions8 10. www.africantourismmarket.com | Info@africantourismmarket.comBenefits to International suppliers International suppliers would be able to subscribe to www.africantourismmarket.com with the sole aim of filling the supply side of our operation that will be mapped to the demand from the African Tourism Markets. As an International supplier, you would be able to list products and services on our website and they will be mapped to development opportunities across Africa. You will also have the option to describe in articles, blogs and other publications, how you can address the challenges facing some of the natural assets across Africa. The benefit of this approach places your products directly in front of the African Tourism Boards and allows them to see how your product can address the issues and challenges they are attempting to resolve.9 11. www.africantourismmarket.com | Info@africantourismmarket.comMapping supplier solutions to tourism opportunities in Africa www.africantourismmarket.com will allow suppliers to see actual projects in Africa where their products and services are most in demand. This mapping will allow supplier to focus their attention where the demand is high.The diagram above (an example) depicts a supplier with 2 products, 2 services and raw materials need. Once posted on www.africantourismmarket.com the intelligence report will show the demand across each country. The diagram above shows product 1 has the highest demands from Burundi and Cape Verde. Product 2 has its highest demands from Chad and Angola and so on.10 12. www.africantourismmarket.com | Info@africantourismmarket.comAddressing youth unemployment in Africa The management of www.Africantourismmarket.com are keen to ensure the impact of Tourism developments in Africa manifests in employment for the African youths and in particular the African University/college graduates. To this end, we will allow students from Universities in Africa to register, free of charge and list their profiles online as well as state the projects where their skillsets are most applicable. The aim of this exercise is to ensure that the students can be used as early as the initial stages of the project development in Africa and gain access to International suppliers, African Diaspora projects dedicated to the development of the natural assets in their locality.The diagram above describes the path a student will follow to engage projects and thereby gain employment, work experience based on their ability or interest to support the projects planned for their area, subject or interest. Students with entrepreneurial interests will also be able to post their development ideas to International suppliers and African Diaspora projects. For example, a student with an entrepreneurial idea in Agriculture, currently studying or graduated from an Agricultural course. He or she creates a plan for the idea and identifies the types of Supplier, products and services in the agricultural sector. His proposal is sent to the matched Suppliers as well as African Diaspora with 11 13. www.africantourismmarket.com | Info@africantourismmarket.com projects in Agricultural or interest in the particular country. As the Suppliers and African Diaspora projects would need touch down in Africa, the objective is for a agreement to the struck enabling the student to be paid for his or her services either as part project evaluation phase or research for the Suppliers or African Diaspora projects.We believe this sort of engagement will allow such employment opportunities to be generated and eventually lead to full time or contractual engagement in the project. A student would therefore have successfully engaged employment directly using the skills that he or she learnt or is learning, applying it to a community need in his locality and engaging projects and suppliers interested in the sector and area.Students will be able to apply directly, their Educational organisations are also welcome to register with us in order to setup the initiative as a programme. Government youth initiatives as also welcome to set partnerships with us in order to be able to generate employment for their youths through development. Statement from Ben Omoakin Oguntala My fathers generation hardly knew of the internet and probably saw computers for first time just before retirement, my generation saw the internet in our teenage years and worked in it, my childrens generation were born into the Internet age and technology, to them, a world without feels like the Ice age. For the African youth, he or she is not only acutely aware of the limitations and problems in his or her society today, his or her education tells him or her the solutions are not difficult to achieve. We aim to them complete that cycle by adding the fact that technology and solutions are only an internet kiosk away. There by putting their destiny directly in their own hands.12 14. www.africantourismmarket.com | Info@africantourismmarket.comHow it works13 15. www.africantourismmarket.com | Info@africantourismmarket.comAbout us African Tourism Market is under the Directorship of Forz Khan, Legal Counsel and Ben Omoakin Oguntala, the Pan African CEO and Founder. The project is associated with DevelopingAfrica.net Mr Forz Khan, Legal Counsel is a Senior Barrister and his role is to assist African developments to be fairly represented in contracts and ensure contractually, some of the social and economically requirements are represented by factoring them into the terms of the agreement. To ensure the Intellectual Property Rights of our clients are protected and enhanced. Ben Omoakin Oguntala is a Technology and Programme Management specialist and his aim is to ensure technology is used as a means of fostering the mass development of African communities by allowing rural businesses in Africa to deal directly with international suppliers who have technology and also ensure African Diaspora Professionals are placed at the forefront of development in Africa. Our aim is to enable the following: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.Provide indiscriminate opportunities to rural businesses across Africa Ensure women empowerment across Africa in entrepreneurship Encourage Youth entrepreneurship and employment Utilisation of African expertise for Tourism development projects in Africa Engagement of Royal families in Africa as a means of promoting African heritage Ensure indiscriminate engagement of International suppliers with technology capable of developing local economies in Africa 7. Ensure community and social economic challenges are addressed contractuallyStatement from Ben Omoakin Oguntala Though I am of Nigerian origin, I spent some of teenage years in various African cities including Maseru Lesotho. As a son of Dr. Akin Oguntala, an Ecologist, having an Ecologist as a Father meant many holidays were spent in places like Sapoba Village in Edo State, Uyo, Agununanka, Kanji Dam, Umuahia and Jos in Nigeria, Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, Nairobi, Kenya, Mount Leribe, Roma, TY in Lesotho. One of the most poignant moments I have of Africa is standing on Mount Leribe Forestry station, 3000 meters above sea level. Everybody says God is Great but you truly appreciate the Greatness of God when you drive through the clouds on the way to the top of Mount Leribe or you are standing in the middle of the Evergreen Forest in Edo state in front of a Buttress tree as wide as a London bus. These natural assets are Gods gifts to Africa and located next to people sometimes living in abject poverty. This is therefore a personal ambition of mine to use my expertise to enable rural Africa, where I spent considerable amount of time, initiate their development. I want to use the interest in a natural asset as a means of generating profit that contractually obliges the building of roads, schools and health facilities for the communities they belong to, as well as 14 16. www.africantourismmarket.com | Info@africantourismmarket.com allow the youths to gain employment. This will allow the community to directly benefit from the natural assets and as a result, they would want to maintain it, as its success is directly linked to the communitys advancement. We are introducing a novel concept to development in Africa; it is a self-service development or DIY (Do it yourself) development, this puts the future of Africa in our hands, the concept also considers community needs into contract law that governs our projects in Africa. To our clients, we assist in putting in place contracts that address community needs like schools, health and infrastructure in a sustainable manner. The natural assets we are showcasing belong to the community and the profits should be reflected directly in the communities.Getting started We welcome registrations from African Tourism Boards, Royal Family representatives, International suppliers with products and services for the Tourism sector in Africa, African University students interested in applying their skills to the Tourism sector and the African Diaspora interested in developing the Tourism sectors in their home communities. There is subscription fee associated with each account, students are free. To participate in our project please email info@africantourismmarket.com with details how you would like to participate. The project goes live in March 2014 and clients will be able to log on online and get their accounts activated.Contact us Ben Omoakin Oguntala Ben.oguntala@Africantourismmarket.com Twitter: afrotourism Website: www.africantourismmarket.com Tel: +44 7812 039 867 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AfricanTourismMarket LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/african-tourism-market15