Nigeria’s largest online travel agency, Wakanow has been kicked out of the IATA clearing house. This come days after the global industry regulator threatened to pull the plug on their services due to the huge debt owed which according to report is worth over three billion naira.
The online travel portal is facing serious financial challenges and has been unable to meet up its payment obligations under the Billing and Settlement Plan (BSP), a method used in the settling of ticket sales and remittances by the industry.
Having been a victim of the economic recession which rocked the nation in the past year, Wakanow, in a bid to increase sales issued out a lot of tickets on credit and even cut down fares.. This however didn’t work well in favour of the largest travel agent as many of the corporate organizations who transacted with the company are yet to pay for the tickets sold which is worth billions of naira.
Industry sources informed a NigeriaTravelsMart.com (NTM) that IATA is however not the only organization trying to recover money owed to it by Wakanow. Banks from which the agency took loans have started asking for the repayment of their loans and have decided not to extend further credit facilities to the travel agency.
Wakanow, founded in 2008, is Nigeria’s first Online Travel Agent. The company has since expanded to the United Arab Emirates UAE, Ghana, United Kingdom and the United States. The company in 2015 also bought the online bus ticketing start up Oya.com.ng.
