New York, USA
Written By: Nuella Sam, Business Critic
Ambassador Remilekun Olaitan Martins, a veteran entrepreneur with a fifteen-year track record of disciplined investment, is pleased to announce the further integration of his multi-sector ecosystem. While many market players have pivoted toward short-term trending sectors, Martins has maintained a steadfast focus on the intersection of tourism, real estate, and community empowerment—crafting a sophisticated development model that serves as a blueprint for sustainable nation-building.
Named among Nigeria’s 100 Persons of the Year 2025 and recipient of the Most Notable Female Advocate of the Year 2025 by the International Association of World Peace Advocates (a UN ECOSOC-accredited body), Martins is now drawing attention for a contrarian thesis she has tested across three companies: you cannot build sustainable tourism without community, and you cannot sustain community without capital.
Her ventures Sceptre Tourism, Sceptre & More Concepts, and Ariel Remar Associates Ltd were not launched as parallel businesses, but as sequential solutions to problems uncovered in real time.
Martins began her journey in 2010 with Sceptre Tourism, betting early that Nigerian culture was an undervalued economic asset. However, years of operating revealed a structural limitation: destinations without engaged local communities struggled to attract and retain visitors.
That realization led to the creation of Sceptre & More Concepts, a community-focused platform working with women, youth, and grassroots groups to build the social infrastructure required for tourism to thrive. Yet another gap soon emerged community development without capital and physical infrastructure could not scale or stabilize.
Her latest venture, Ariel Remar Associates Ltd, addresses that gap by connecting diaspora and global capital to African real estate opportunities, effectively extending her earlier work into the built environment.
“This is not a pivot,” Martins explains. “It is a continuation. You cannot sell a destination without community. You cannot monetize community without capital. And you cannot deploy capital without cultural literacy.”
Her approach comes at a critical time for Nigeria’s tourism sector. The country recorded approximately 539,000 international tourist arrivals in 2024 significantly trailing peers like Kenya and South Africa. Industry revenue also reflects volatility, dropping from $1.45 billion in 2019 to $313 million in 2020 during the pandemic, before entering a gradual recovery phase.
While many operators exited the space during this downturn, Martins remained, gaining what few in the industry possess: a full-cycle, fifteen-year operational perspective spanning economic shocks, policy inconsistencies, and global disruption.
Her insights challenge conventional thinking.
“Nigeria does not have a tourism problem,” she says. “It has a community infrastructure problem pretending to be a tourism problem.”
Beyond enterprise, Martins has also distinguished herself through a non-traditional approach to empowerment. Rather than focusing on scholarships or financial aid, she has spent over a decade building cultural participation programs that place young women at the center of economic and social engagement.
Her reasoning is rooted in long-term outcomes.
“Charity builds dependence. Cultural participation builds agency. Agency creates decision-making power and that is what drives economic independence,” she notes.
This methodology, backed by 15 years of implementation, has become a defining element of her advocacy work and contributed to her recognition as a leading female advocate in 2025.
As Africa’s tourism sector records an estimated 10% year-on-year growth through 2025, and diaspora remittances to Nigeria remain within the $19–$20 billion range annually, Martins believes the next phase of opportunity lies in connecting these parallel streams.
“Diaspora capital is one of the most underutilized assets in African development,” she says. “Much of it is sitting in overseas real estate when it could be compounding value at home.”
Her expansion into international real estate reflects this belief approaching property development not merely through yield, but through place making, informed by cultural and community dynamics.
Industry observers note that this integrated model positions Martins differently from both traditional tourism operators and conventional real estate developers.
“She is not building projects. She is building systems,” a sector analyst familiar with her work commented.
From activating cultural sites to structuring diaspora-backed investments, Martins’ work sits at the intersection of culture, capital, and infrastructure a convergence she believes will define the next wave of African wealth creation.
“I have spent fifteen years turning African culture into community infrastructure,” she says. “Now, I am connecting global capital to it.”
With three interconnected ventures and a growing international outlook, Ambassador Remilekun Olaitan Martins is not just participating in Nigeria’s development narrative she is actively redesigning its underlying framework.
About Ambassador Remilekun Olaitan Martins
Ambassador Remilekun Olaitan Martins is a Lagos-based tourism practitioner, cultural strategist, and community development operator with over 15 years of experience. She is the founder of Sceptre Tourism, Sceptre & More Concepts, and Ariel Remar Associates Ltd. Her work focuses on integrating tourism, community infrastructure, and real estate to unlock sustainable economic value across African markets.
Last modified: April 23, 2026
