Years back, minds travel was a tough task and there were very little or no motivation for people in my country, Nigeria, to move around, visiting exciting sites as tourists.
You can only hear of a locations, but barely find images that could make you feel you were there live. Images have a way of motivating people to take action.
This is one of the things I have found and I also teach my mobile content production students in Nigeria. I have motivated them with the images I have shared on Google and the responses I have received.
Thanks to smartphones and Google, everything distance has been removed from our brain and we now explore places right on our smartphones before we visit them.
Here is where warm and cold waters of Ikogosi meet.
It feels absurd to have two legs in a water yet with two different temperatures. I placed my feet in it and I could feel both waters. they flow together without mixing and that is such a mystery.
This is one of the places that my image shared on Google had received responses that are encouraging.
Visiting the and other tourism sites in Osun and Ekiti States within few days brought so much relief to me and everyone feels same way after such visit.
Boosting Tourism
One area of life that is booming and has continued to generate huge revenue for different nations is tourism.
But not very many countries have been able to explore this sector because of different reasons.
In my country, Nigeria, for instance, the government has not been able to harness the rewards in this sector because of lack of capacity and will to do so.
Another reason is corruption.
However, this sector could receive a boost if more Google guide could come on board and write about the places in their localities that are exciting to be.
Often, people who have smartphones or cameras have not thought about how much money and investment could come to their communities if they devote time to taking few shots per day and sharing those on Goggle map.
I could remember my journey to Whispering Palms Resort in Badagry area of Lagos State and how we arrived at night. Thanks to Google map, we would have been lost.
Prior to the time I got there, there were few pictures online about the location or even food that one could find there.
But when I got there, I shared some images that have helped people know the current state of the resort and then decide if they would visit.
Apart from the revenue that could come from the images and videos submitted on Google map, the joy of providing information that someone rely on to make certain decisions is something that is quantifiable.
The power of our phone lens to end corruption, improve economies, make life more interesting and fun cannot be underestimated, but we have to take the task ahead of us all as local guides to make more images available for everyone to find a path when they need it.