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Tinapa is a business and leisure resort located North of Calabar Municipality, Cross River State, Nigeria conceptualized with the Calabar Free Trade Zone which makes it a business resort.

Understand

History

The Tinapa project was initiated by Donald Duke as a means to boost business and tourism in the state. It is a four-phased development promoted by the Government of Cross River State, under a Private Public Partnership (PPP), and very close to Calabar Free Trade Zone. Over $350 million was spent on initial development. Tinapa business resort is said to be the first integrated business and leisure resort in Nigeria. Tinapa Free Zone has world-class facilities that enable visitors to engage in retail and wholesale activities as well as leisure and entertainment. The first phase of Tinapa Business Resort & Free Zone, Calabar, was commissioned on 2 April 2007.

Location

Tinapa is a 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) drive from Calabar by a roundabout route, but the Federal government is building a more direct 2.5 kilometres (1.6 mi) access road to link it with the city.

Stay Safe

The locals are very nice people. While it is rare for a tourist to be affected by violent crime, it's still a good idea to be alert.

Connect

There is coverage of 2G/3G mobile networks in areas of the resort and its surrounding, but coverage of 4G networks is not so reliable. Signal strength doesn't use to be stable all the time, so you might occasionally experience network outages for all or some of the mobile phone service providers in some locations. All major mobile phone service providers are operational but with varying levels of reliability and usability. Different providers networks tend to be more stable and reliable in different locations at different times.

If you are planning a visit to the resort, like many other places in Nigeria, you should probably consider having multiple SIM cards, preferably for all the mobile service providers, since you can't tell which will be more stable and reliable at a time in your location during your visit. And if you will risk not having any of them, you might be better off not risking the MTN network, because, from indications, it seems to perform well than the others, though its rates may be high and its offers and services might be stringent, you are less likely to be concerned of erratic voice and data connection compared to others.

Airtel is another service provider which is fairly satisfactory for all you might need to connect to the world, including rates and network stability. Of course, Glo (or Globacom) boasts of fast network speed for internet browsing activities, only that you might not be able to enjoy the privilege in some locations. And 9Mobile (formerly Etisalat) usually also performs well in internet browsing speed but with locational limitations as well, plus the data rate is fairly higher.