As part of the efforts to expand tourism offerings in Nigeria, most especially in the South West, the proprietor of La Campagne Tropicana Group and founder of the Motherland Beckons Initiative Otunba Wanle Akinboboye, has unveiled the La Campagne Tropicana Hills, Forest and Caves Resorts in Ondo town, Ondo State. He said the aim is to create a unique tourism experience from the mountain range of Ondo. The offerings will also include other tourist attractions within Ondo State, other parts of the South West, and the Middle Belt. The project is a long term vision that would transform the Ondo area into a tourism hub from where tourists could have access to a range of attractions like the Idanre Hills, the Erin Ijesa Waterfalls, the Ikogosi Warm and Cold Spring resort, the ancient traditional palace of Owoh, and many other attractions.

Pitched up the hills and sandwiched between crevices of rocks, La Campagne Tropicana Hills, Forest and Cave Resort is located at the top of the Ita Nla hills, at Ita Nla area, off the Ondo-Akure express road, the rooms are stylishly built into the rocks using African theme architecture and local materials like silt and clay that give the resort an authentic African setting and flavour. The total concept is an admixture of being in the midst of nature in an Africa resort, yet not foregoing exquisite hospitality experience.

The reception area of the resort is like an open hut, with artistically decorated rocks jutting out, blending with the environment. Guests have the option of dining inside the cave restaurant, or open dining on the hills with panoramic bird-eyes view of Ondo town.

The cave restaurant is a labyrinth of openings that wind through different exclusive rock caves dining areas.

To get to the rooms, tourists and visitors would navigate through the carved out pathway through the rocks to hut-like accommodation facilities pitched on pillars nestled in the rocks. Some of the accommodation facilities are built with silt giving them an authentic African feel. There is also a hill-top swimming pool with a poolside bar and lounging area. Up behind the swimming pool are the Ola Rotimi rock amphitheatre, a lawn tennis court, and a football court under construction. Navigating further up towards the summit of the hills are wooden cabanas, a private lounging area and the concrete staircase leading to the summit of the hills. The staircase from the foot of the rock to the top is about 300 steps. The steps are demanding, the closer one gets to the top, the harder each step becomes. But right atop the hills is a natural cave that could serve as a relaxation point in future.

There is currently no resort in Nigeria that offers the same experience and adventure like the La Campagne Hills, Forest and Caves Resort in Ondo. This puts the resort in a league of its own.

Despite all that has been put into the project, Akinboboye says the project is less than five per cent of the concept when fully completed. It is a project that would encompass having modern zip lining that would offer the kind of thrill that Nigerian adrenaline junkies that travel to different parts of the world to enjoy would find fascinating. It will be right there at Ondo. The project would stretch almost 15 kilometers through the mountain range behind Ita Nla hills. It is a project that would transform Ondo and place it on the world’s tourism map as a destination for healthy mountaineering and hiking.

Although the vision for Destination Ondo as conceptualised by Otunba Wanle Akinboboye seems a little gigantic, for those familiar with Akinboboye’s track record in the last four decades in the Nigerian tourism and hospitality landscape, it is achievable.

“I have been in the industry for so long, a sojourn that started in 1984. I didn’t have a clue of what I was trying to do. I just had this particular passion to get it done. I had never built a resort before. I had never run it before, but I just had a passion that we must create our own theme African concept, because of the vast population that we have around the world and in the continent, 1.5 billion people, both in the Diaspora. But why is it that we have not had our own representation? When you sit back and you think, you find out that it is only when you take advantage of your advantage that you have an absolute monopoly, by weaving around nature and culture, put us way ahead of theMost times, if you have a lot of money, you don’t have time, or you have a lot of time, you don’t have money. When both of them come together, the problem we have is that we want to experience something different. I believe when people travel, they travel to experience other cultures.

” That is the first thing that is constant in travels, educational tourism, because if you come for archeological tourism, you come for adventure tourism, religious tourism, business tourism, MICE, any form of tourism, one aspect of tourism that is constant is that of educational tourism, he said. “From the airport, you start learning the culture of the people. I brought in a European, and the traffic was so much that by the time we got to the resort, it was very late and I was apologizing. I said, ‘I’m sorry that the traffic was like that. He said ‘no wahala.’ I asked him where did you hear that? He said that was what everybody was saying at the airport. He has learnt that, and then I had to teach him how to use it because he would come in the morning and say ‘no wahala’.

“When we find ourselves in a particular environment, we find how to transform that environment into prosperity. When I say transforming an environment into prosperity, it does not mean that prosperity must happen overnight. It must be a process, there must be a beginning.”

Speaking to a group members of the Nigerian association of Tour Operators, Akinboboye said: “ I am not asking you to come and do Ondo a favour, I am not asking you for hand-outs, I want us to do it together, Ubuntu-wise, togetherness. I want us to interact. I want us to look at: what is it that we can do? We have the database at our resort, but we are not tour operators, you have the experience to say, how do we transform this into money for us? You are already familiar with the product, but now experiencing the product in a different terrain, it’s a different ball game.

“So, they will say, there is a hills resort where you can experience the best of African culture, hospitality, music and all the dances that you usually enjoy in Lagos. You can enjoy it on the hills. That is your job, but together, we can make a lot happen in that manner.

“This place has been here for thousands, if not millions of years. The narrative we put out today, will be seen by millions of people because of the advent of social media. It would make tourists say wow, I have to go there. That would make tourists say I have to go here. That might not happen within a year. But when you have a stream of one million people saying I have to go here, some can travel within a month, some in two, three, four years, that is the narrative that I need us to build. Until you take advantage of your advantage, you can’t have an advantage. You might have an opportunity, but you won’t have an advantage.”

The President of the Federation of Tourism Associations of Nigeria (FTAN) Nkereuwem Onung, who was part of the tour operators’ team that visited the resort and other tourist attractions in Ondo and environs, has this to say: “It is mind blowing that a man could that. It has everything. He has kayaking; he has 12 rooms inside the place. He has a 25 room hotel inside the town. He took us there. He was a house of assembly member in Lagos two times. He has Motherlan Luxury Hotel in the town. He has a luxury lounge, and he is building an estate. He has a 500 hectare land for farming and other things. He is also building a housing estate. He has a poultry farm that produces 1000 crates of eggs every day.

“It is unique, it is something that is unbelievable, for him to do all that, and you can see the efforts. It takes a lot of creativity for that to come out. It is not what an individual can do. At the stage that he is, the government needs to come to his aid. That is the private sector power, you know, creating a destination.

“We are looking at the Annual General meeting of NATOP, but we said it has to start from Akure where the government has to come in. we can use that to open up the destination. It is a unique place.”

Asked if Ondo could be a viable tourist destination, the FTAN President said: “Yes, it is very viable. There are too many things to see in Ondo. You know all those things you are talking about like Idanre hills and others, which are just 25 minutes from Ondo. You can visit a lot of places in the South West. There is no insecurity in Ondo, it has stopped. Like they said, nobody will bring insecurity in their town. I think it is a very viable destination with a lot to see. “

His thoughts were re-echoed by the President of the Nigerian Association of Tour Operators (NATOP), Alhaja Bolaji Mustapha who led the tour operators to the resort. She expressed her satisfaction with the accommodation and conference facilities in Ondo town and state and promised that her association intends to market the city as a destination.