Tourists Club International (TCI) announced it will establish two tourism sites in Badagry, Lagos State: the Tourists Club International Art Gallery and the Tourists Club International Forest Reserve.
The group said the announcement was made on Sunday to mark World Tourism Day 2026, whose theme is “Digital Agenda and Artificial Intelligence to Redesign Tourism” and whose official global celebration is being hosted by El Salvador. The plan was reported by BusinessDay and Vanguard.
TCI president Dr Osa Mbonu-Amadi described the initiative as a practical response to the World Tourism Day theme. “The establishment of the Tourists Club International Art Gallery and the Tourists Club International Forest Reserve is our practical response to the 2026 World Tourism Day theme,” he said, according to the reports.
TCI said it expects the art gallery to become the first purpose-built art gallery in Badagry. The organisation told reporters that its main reason for creating the facility is to provide a secure home for important artworks it has acquired in recent years, and to serve as a platform for cultural preservation, artistic appreciation, tourism education and digital storytelling.
TCI said the forest reserve is a small, yet significant, natural area and the only surviving forested space in the host community. The organisation described the site as home to a colony of monkeys, whose environment is increasingly threatened by unsustainable development. It said the reserve will provide opportunities for environmental education, nature-based tourism, biodiversity conservation and public awareness about preserving urban and peri-urban forests.
Both reports said TCI intends to document the gallery, its collections and the stories behind the artworks, and to give Badagry’s cultural and natural assets greater visibility in the digital tourism ecosystem through verified descriptions, visual documentation and location data. The organisation argued travellers are increasingly relying on digital platforms and AI tools to choose destinations, and that proper documentation is necessary for places to appear in AI-driven travel results.
TCI said the initiative aims to benefit Nigerian communities, artists, conservationists, guides, small tourism businesses and culture-bearers, and to promote inclusive tourism narratives that showcase emerging attractions and community-based projects rather than only established commercial destinations.
The organisation said it will open the art gallery and forest reserve to the public at a date to be announced. The announcement and related details were reported by BusinessDay and Vanguard.
Featured image: Ayorinde Ogundele via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
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