5 MINUTES WITH OGBONNAYA OBI

ogbonnaya obi is a highly skilled relationship manager and strategist with a flair for innovative thinking, engaging strategic business interests and closing deals. he heads up negotiations with airline and hotels to ensure maximum leverage is achieved and passes the cost saving to clients as well as assisting corporate clients on a 24-hours support basis. he joined World Travel shop in 2013 after several years in the United state of america working for top Real estate firms. he is presently the Group General Manager – operations and also doubles as the Managing director of eazi-Trips. with your Bachelor’s degree in Government & Public Administration, one would have thought you’d go the boardroom route, so this will sound generic but it is an enlightening question to ask. why travel management?

The question is not generic at all as I get a lot of these all the time. My choice of travel management as a career was influenced by two factors. First was that World Travel shop (“WTS”) is a family business and I wanted to follow the family business line to build on what was already there. Secondly, we saw a niche in the industry that we can carve for ourselves - Corporate Travel Management. So, I pursued it and turned it into a career. How long have you been in the traveling/tours agency business, what is the world Travel Shop story?:

In totality I will say I have been in this on part time status for about 11years but full time status for five years and a couple of months now. The WTS story can be likened to that of a mustard seed, which starts from a small seed but grows to become a big tree. We started off as a small travel company and have remained consistent in our growth focus and are gradually turning into a global Travel Group - slowly but surely. what other kinds of service do you provide to your clients or potential clients?

In addition to flights services both local and International, we provide hotels bookings and reservations, activities tickets while on holiday, transfers to and from the airports, meet and greet and protocol services. our network of hotel suppliers have over 1500 hotels in their group. I can confidently say that we will beat any hotel quote that is brought to us. If at any point we can’t beat it, we will definitely match it. You recently launched Eazi-Trips, Congratulations on your steady progress in the cut-throat industry! what’s the EaziTrips story and how did it all begin?:

eazi-trips is a subsidiary of WTS. It was created out of the desire to stay competitive in an industry that is continuously evolving, by establishing a Travel Group to cater to the multifaceted segment of the travel booking/agency industry. our business model in WTS is B2B model while eazi-trips was created to cater for B2C customers. You will agree with me that people nowadays want to do their businesses online by themselves, including flight bookings and other travel arrangement. eazitrips is giving consumers the ability to go online and book their trips from flights to hotels and activities for holiday or business trips, stress free. The Nigerian travel scene is fast becoming a major force to reckon with, how have you been able to carve a niche for your brand, what makes wTS / EaziTrips efficient and different from other travel agencies and establishments?

WTS & eazi-trips has remained efficient because rather than reinventing the wheel in our industry, we are proactive to tap into new trends early enough, especially in relations to technology and service efficiency, which brings about customer satisfaction for our key market segment - Corporate Travel Management. The travel industry is one that has experienced tremendous change over a short period of time. For example, a few years back, airline tickets were paper stubs that you tear off each segment of the trip but all that has changed now to electronic tickets and to remain efficient and effective. You have to always be in the eye of the technology wave. For us at WTS and eazi-trips, we have entrenched industry best practices at the core in our services delivery and that is how we have remained efficient. on the issue of being different from other travel agents, every travel agency has their target markets, we have created our own target market and stayed with it. That has actually made us different. with the knowledge and expertise you have acquired about traveling, will you say Nigerians still possess a traveling culture and how can you explain that?

Statistics has shown that the number of business and leisure travelers from Nigeria is on the steady rise and it is only a people who have a culture or a habit of traveling that will continue to do so regardless of the seemingly hard economic situations that the country is facing now. You offer world class services to your clients, do you work with a client’s budget and how pocket friendly are these services?

Yes, we do. That is one of the core value offerings that our organization provides. We help clients plan their holiday, advise them when to buy their tickets so they won’t pay premium prices on ticket cost and also advise them on destinations different from the traditional United Kingdom and America which is typically where Nigerians like to go for holidays. You are open to meeting all sorts of people with different temperaments and egos that you have to master to handle, tell us three noteworthy lessons you have learnt from dealing with your clients.

Three lessons: one is, you must learn to listen. Whether the customer is making sense or not, just listen. Two, always answer your telephone no matter what time of the day it is. Customers will call you at odd times if they have a problem and trust me, they don’t care if you are sleeping or not; they just want to be attended to. Good thing about that though, is that the customer will always remember you as that agent that answers whenever they call and thirdly, never tell a customer that you don’t know about their problem even if you don’t. Just say: “Ma or Sir, I will check with the airline and come back to you”. You recently bagged a degree in a business course at the Pan Atlantic University. Hoe has this helped you in growing your business and you as a person?

Lagos Business School was an eye opener for me. I never knew that the curriculum and faculty members were that good considering the poor state of our educational system in Nigeria. LBS will stand tall amongst major business schools in the world. Going to LBS has sharpened by managerial abilities, it has also improved my negotiating skills, helped me relate better with my colleagues and exposed me to a wide network of friends and alumni. It feels good to enter a place and find out that there is an LBS alumnus there. Except you’re anti-fashion what is your current style obsession?

It could be a trend, a label, a fashion item or even a style icon. Well I like to dress up and look smart. It gives me extra confidence when I enter any place. Well, funny enough most clothes that I wear are made in Nigeria. From my shirts, to my pants and Jackets - they are all made locally. Nigerian fashion industry is another industry that is doing so well in style and trends. A few of the Nigerian designers that I wear their labels are: Clothes By oGBng, Mezon designs and David Wej. These guys are doing amazing jobs. Look them up and you will be glad you did.