Behind every successful project, there’s is someone behind it.
Miss Tourism Nigeria is no doubt one of the biggest project in Nigeria over the years.
The producer, San Tiago, who is also behind Mr Universe Nigeria, Miss Fashion Nigeria, in an interview with Sahara Weekly revealed The juicy benefits involved in the upcoming Miss Tourism Nigeria 2016 which is taking place on Saturday, July 9, 2016 at the prestigious Ruby Gardens, Lekki, Lagos.
Excerpts:
Q – My name is Osho oluwatosin, can we meet you?
R – My name is San tiago Roberts. I’m the CEO of Miss Tourism Nigeria, Mr Universe Nigeria and Miss Fashion Nigeria
Q – What’s the brain behind Miss tourism Nigeria?
R – We’ll, Miss tourism is about promoting Nigeria’s tourism both in Nigeria and accross the world. We want to be able to beautify our tourism attractions in a way that people can take out of their time to want to come to Nigeria to see how beautiful Nigeria is and also to encourage investment into the sector. So centrally, we can say that miss tourism Nigeria is all about promoting tourism in Nigeria and on the international platform in order to make Nigeria a tourist nation.
Q – When did you start this event?
R – Miss tourism Nigeria for us started about 5-years ago. It’s an international franchise and we acquired the franchise from Miss Tourism world five-years ago.
Q – Ever since you started, how has the response been?
R – In terms of content, production, it’s been exciting and challenging but of course the show must go on but one of the daunting task is the area of sponsorship. It’s almost impossible trying to get brands to put their money into this. We thought since it’s a tourism initiative designed to promote Nigeria’s tourism, brands and companies would fall in line and invest their money to make sure it’s an annual event but it becomes the other way round. We go to them and we hear all sort of excuses. Every year we keep investing our own money to put this show together hoping that later in the nearest future, government would pick interest in it.
Q – What are the benefits for the winners?
R – For Miss Tourism Nigeria, first and foremost the winner gets to represent Nigeria on the international level among other 7o countries in Miss tourism world holding in Malaysia this year. The winner will also be going home with a new car, and would be a brand ambassador to one of the biggest skin care company in the world, a brand ambassador for ‘Saving Hope’, which is our own foundation here about helping the less privileged, encouraging young people to go back to school, etc. Basically, she will become a role model and a change ambassador to young people.
Q – What’s the inspiration behind Miss tourism Nigeria?
R – Well, I’ve been in the peagant industry for 13-14 years. Primarily, I was a peagant producer and consultant for lot of peagants in Nigeria in terms of helping them produce their shows both state and nationally and also couple of international peagents and five years ago I thought about it and was like we’ve been doing this for people successfully and it’s about time we kick-start. When you are producing a peagant for someone, there’s a limit to what you can do and what you can’t do but if we are doing it ourselves, we can go beyond the limits and empower more people as compared to the way other people do theirs.
Q -What makes your peagant unique and how do you deal with accusation of not meeting up with promises?
R – First and foremost, let’s start with the accusation of not meeting up with promises, we have always delivered all of our promises. We don’t promise what we can’t give and one of the things I think get people into trouble is the focus more on the external than what you can empower the person with. I always tell our contestants that as much as you will be getting the prizes, that is not the central focus. Our focus is to make you a change ambassador so that you can also in turn empower a lot of young people so we groom our contestants in a way that even if they don’t win, they live with the orientation to become a better person. We have a lot of our contestants who didn’t win but have become better persons. I’ve some of them who even didn’t get to top 15 but today have their own NGOs. This year, we will be supporting one of those contestants. Her NGO is called Voice of the Black child Nigeria. She spends lot of money feding kids, educating them and we’ve decided to support her towards that course so for us it’s not just about showing the cars, fame, we want to do more than those things.we want to be a ble to empower them.
Q – When winner emerges, some of the candidates who probably didn’t win tend to complain to people outside, how do you handle such situation?
R – One of the things we’ve been able to strategically do with the miss tourism brand is that for every step you intend to get to, you have to work for it. It’s very open for you to know if you are doing well or not. For instance, after the auditions, we have what we call PPL which is Public participation level where we ask people vote for you. We have a company that manage that so they publish the result online so if you don’t get enough vote, you can’t go on. The most important thing is the lessons you take with you, it’s not just about learning. It’s about the experience you gather. we’ve never really had the issue of grunt in contestants. Our contestants always rally round the winner. Throughout the whole year, they support as much as possible. We have a group of 2015 and till now, it still exists and they are even sponsors for this year’s event.
Q – What’s the government support towards this event like?
R – That’s another major thing but I’m very hopeful. We’ve been to Lagos state government this year and I know the commissioner for tourism Is coming. He wants to come and see how the event can be adopted by the Lagos state government next year. I also know the Special Assistant to the Governor of Akwa ibom on Tourism is coming this year so we are excited that we are starting to get good response from the government this year.
Q – Tell us about San Tiago
R – First and foremost, I’m not the type that likes to stay in front of the camera but i’m the easy going type. I’m simple and casual. I finished from Nigerian Institute of Journalism, Ogba.
Q – Are you comfortable doing this Job and do you want to stick to it?
R – I’ve been in the industry for 14 years, it has its own challenges but as long as you are committed to what you are doing, it will surely pay off. We keep thriving in the challenges but we are able to keep up with our co-operate expenses.
Q – Where is Santiago from?
R – I have parents from Nigeria and Ghana. My full names are Santiago Oluwaremilekun Roberts.