Lagos — Nigeria's slum dwellings remain potential tourists havens if only authorities would desist from viewing these projects as demolition targets to make way for one infrastructure or the other that eventually would be abandoned or one specifically tailored to meet the needs of the only the rich.

The world over, countries in developing economies category have tended to preserve some figments or reminders of their past by way of mapping out geographical sections of their land where foreign visitors are escorted through by tour operators to see those in the lower economic strata.

In the same vein those in these societies have also found a way of sustaining a living by receiving these various visitors.

Slum tourism in Nigeria particularly has both a thriving domestic and international market unlike the country's potential competitions in other parts of the world such that it would also amount to a memorable event for a Nigerian who has virtually spent all his or life in the Lekki area of Lagos, to be taken on a guided tour of the various slums in the same Lagos like Mushin, Ajegunle, Ijora Badiya, and many more.

Indeed, poverty in Nigeria is good business but only for those in the hospitality industry who are able to see its potentials and readily exploit it for the benefit of both the people involved and the firms engaged in it. It is generally believed that overseas holidays entail not only rest and recreation but also sightseeing tours of the squalid living conditions of the local poor.

For tourists from rich countries or states or just sections of the same country, a visit to the slums or poorer districts if well planned remains the best trip. Adventure tourism is all about experiencing the unusual, which a trip to a slum rather captures.

Slum tourism also called Philanthropic travel - or 'slum tourism' as it has become known yearly attracts affluent tourists from the Western economies who yearn to catch a glimpse of what it is like to live in poverty.

In addition, countries are capitalizing on their Hollywood stardom to also exploit those aspects of their countries featured on the silverscreen for tourism purposes such that it is used as bait to attract tourists.

Examples abound like in India's Dharavi slum in Mumbai, which featured in the movie Slumdog Millionaire, South Africa's Soweto shanty towns, Rio's Rocinha favela, Jakarta's slums and even areas in New Orleans devastated by Hurricane Katrina are being added to itineraries.

South Africa's tour operators reap profits taking tourists round Soweto, particularly the Vilakezi Street area of the town which is touted to be the only one street where two Nobel prize laureates live. The two being Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

The slums of Soweto are big attraction in South Africa Tourism as the country's practitioners have found a way of exploiting that aspect of tourism that the area portends.

Nigeria should not be left out as the country also boasts of its own Hollywood exposure in films like X-Men Wolverine, Tears of the Sun, and others, even as Jos in Plateau State, in time to come remains a tourists hot spot for as long as the global media's attention coupled with its slum villages continue to put it in focus.

"We don't take tourism as a business seriously in this country. And we have been blessed with many attractions that nobody is looking at. It's not about cultural tourism of singing and dancing. It's about having what people want to see. It's about being able to identify potential attractions and make profit from it," said Mr. Kunle Adefuye, a professional tour guide in Lagos.

It is believed that Nigeria harbours several destinations that had or are still taking up space in the global media which fires up the urge to visit in many foreign tourists. The problem has however, remained the policy framework on the part of industry regulators who should incorporate these ideas, or even the people with the right desposition to drive these ideas.

For countries that are seen as dangerous, the people there have always evolved a way or means of exploiting the negativity into profitability. It is considered good tourism business as long as it attracts tourists who pay their way to come and see the much publicized negativity or in this case, poverty.

Tourism, according to experts, is a kind of business that thrives on curiosity of tourists, and must be seen in the same perspective by Nigerian tourism practitioners. And, although this is not an anti-modernization call, there is, however, need for governments at various tiers to begin to see the business potentials of the very resources the countyr sits on rather than allow it to go to waste.

Michelle Desmarchelier, of the Kumuka Worldwide, said 50 to 60 per cent of her tour company's clients who visited Johannesburg in South Africa also took tours of Soweto.

Intrepid Travel's responsible travel manager, Jane Crouch, said many of her clients who had booked trips to South Africa for the World Cup soccer in June were adding bike tours through Soweto as part of their holiday.

"We call it an urban adventure trip where the group gets to have lots of interaction with the locals," she said. 'For us it's about providing real-life experiences and getting out and meeting the local people and learning how they live."

In Indonesia, Ronny Poluan, founder of Hidden Jakarta tours, said the aim of his tours to the poorest areas of the city - including Ciliwung, Galur and Kota - was "to introduce ordinary people to other ordinary people, to sit and chat in an average home and discuss life in order to find commonalities and meet 'heart to heart' ".

He denied the residents were being exploited.

"We are not showing tourists poverty, though the people we visit are poor, and we are actively developing ways of assisting them through the tours, but trying to get through class, wealth, language, skin colour and other barriers so people can see each other as people, not as categories of society," Mr Poluan said.

Isabelle Cossart, who runs tours through areas that were devastated when hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005, said up to 8 per cent of her clients were Australians. A total of 6313 people took post-Katrina tours in 2007 - it was down to 2228 last year.

She said visiting Australians were usually shocked by the lingering impact of the disaster.

Chris Way, co-owner of Reality Tours and Travel, which conducts tours of the Dharavi slum in Mumbai, said client numbers had increased by 50 per cent to 4500 last year following the release of the movie Slumdog Millionaire. Only 600 people took the tour in 2006.

As most tour operators have come to realize, poverty is a must for every well-heeled tourist.