Tourism Paradigm

I decided to take this step for one simple reason, to chase my dream. This might sound crazy and you are probably asking yourself why my dream is different from any other dream? I believe that by achieving my dream many other dreams will be achieved as well. My name is Bartola Mavric and I am from a little town called Selce in Croatia. Since elementary school, I remember being an adventure type with big and crazy dreams, when I was 10 years old I came home from school one day with an idea that I would one day move to Africa. At the time, I did not know a lot about any country in Africa, culture or history but I was sure of what I wanted to do. Over the years, I developed my interest in tourism and sociology in tourism. In high school I learned everything about how the tourism sector works, however, it was not enough for me, I wanted to learn more, I wanted to discover how a different type of tourism could be a key for building underdeveloped countries or how to make non-tourist country into big bubble on the tourism market. After graduating from the Tourism and Culture department in 2012. I decided to go into the world. The normal trend for Croatian migrants is Germany, Ireland, Austria, Canada, Australia, Western countries in general. However, I had no interest in any of those places; I wanted to go to the East or Africa. Many people including my mother thought I am crazy, while everyone immigrating to more develop countries I was attracted to less develop countries. With 80 Euro in my pocket, no secure job, not knowing the culture or language I headed to Istanbul, Turkey. I earned pocket money by sharing flyers on the road, cat sitting, babysitting, being a nanny, working in cloth stores, anything I could to cover my rent and food. But I was determined, I wanted more, I wanted to study more! I applied for Turkish Scholarship Program and I was the first to get picked that year (one of my happiest days). I started studying in the Social Science department and continued researching about the possibilities in tourism development. That year, I met my husband. Being a Nigerian I always bothered him to tell me more about the history, culture and their food specialities. I graduated from my master program in 2016. One of the things that convinced me that Africa is the place I needed to be, is my thesis research which was about African Migrants in Istanbul towards Social – Economic Assessment. Working on this project made me realise a lot about the life that people in African countries live and why they migrate to other places. I worked for 2 years, and I was happy that I was doing something I love (workıng with kids), I would always say my two biggest passions are learning and teaching, however at that time I felt that it was time to take a next step. Over the years, I had been learning about Nigeria and imagining how it would really be and what I could do there for tourism. In the summer of 2018, I finally visited Nigeria, I was saving money for more than a year to go there and discover first-hand. It was quite a chaotic place, with a very rich elite and a very poor majority and virtually no middle class. People knew little about the opportunities they had and appreciated it even lesser. In my opinion, this is because most people do not possess the necessary knowledge and skills to tap into the opportunities available to them. After spending a few days there I knew, that is where I wanted to be. It was very different from what I am used to in Europe but it has the spirit that suits me. I had the opportunity to visit many places such as Abuja, Lagos and Niger states. Niger state is by landmass the largest state in Nigeria, It holds the largest resources in the country in agricultural and mineral resources and is one of the poorest states in the country. My dream is to take steps to create a paradigm that will inspire many people across different economic classes using tourism. The tourism sector is a vast sector which employs many people regardless of their age or qualifications. The first step I will embark on is to develop tourism packages which can be sold to international tourism agencies. The idea is to develop packages for tourism which will present Nigerian history, culture, tradition, gastronomy and much more which we usually don’t see. I am strongly convinced that a project such as this can bring more jobs and more education. My vision is to one day open a tourism school that will educate young generations to develop and continue working on developing the tourism sector, establish a small hotel with a restaurant and give them opportunity to practice there and improve the tourism sector. In order to achieve this. I have to start from something smaller. I am currently looking for funding that will enable me start building and selling tourism packages for tourism in Nigeria. I would like to everyone to follow my blog as I embark on the journey to chase to my dreams.