Over 100 investors express interest in Marine Drive project
More than 100 institutions and individual investors have expressed interest in partnering the government to develop the multimillion dollar Marine Drive project in Accra for tourism development in the country.
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The investors have approached the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture seeking approval to build hotels, restaurants, theatres, cinemas, casinos, among other hospitality-related investments along the 240 acres of land stretch from the Osu Christianborg Castle to the Arts Centre.
The Deputy Minister of Tourism, Dr Ziblim Iddi, who disclosed this said the high interest in the project from both local and international investors had “excited and overwhelmed the ministry”.
World Tourism Day
Dr Iddi was speaking to the Daily Graphic after joining the Savanna Accelerated Development Authority (SADA) to launch this year’s United Nations (UN) World Tourism Day in Accra yesterday.
The deputy minister, who said investors were still putting in bids, indicated that his outfit was looking for ways to use the country’s laws to formulate suitable partnerships for the project.
He indicated that the government would supervise the investors who would be selected to build five high-end hotels in the category of four and five-star edifices, budget hotels, theatres, cinemas, restaurants, among other packages.
“In terms of the calibre of investors, I will say that these are big time investors with track records as regards what they have accomplished in the country.
“Those who have expressed interest include local investors and international investors with local partners,” he said.
If successful, Dr Iddi stated, the government would replicate the concept in the other coastal regions, which are the Volta, Western and Central regions.
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SADA partnership
The Tourism Day is an initiative of the UN World Tourism Organisation and is aimed at highlighting the importance of tourism to the socio-economic development of nations. It is observed annually on September 27.
This year’s Tourism Day, to be celebrated on the theme ‘Sustainable tourism, a tool for national development’, will be hosted in Tamale as part of efforts by SADA and the ministries of Tourism and Business Development to highlight and harness tourism potentials in the savanna zone of the country.
Although the savanna zones in Ghana boast a haven of tourism sites, these account for less than five per cent of annual tourist numbers.
The Deputy Minister of Tourism noted that activities such as the hosting of the Tourism Day in the north of the country would promote investments in tourism.
Why Tamale?
SADA similarly partnered the Ministry of Tourism in 2016 to hold the Tourism Day at Kintampo in the Brong Ahafo Region.
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of SADA, Mr Charles A. Abugre, said since then, the authority had had “expressions of interests from potential investors interested in investing in the area.”
“So these events do produce some results,” he mentioned, explaining that the decision to repeat the programme in the zone was meant to further expose the tourist sites in the savanna zone to investors.
Although there are immense tourism potentials in the area, Mr Abugre said, not much was known about them; hence the need for the media, tourism promotion institutions and Ghanaians in general to help expose them to domestic and international tourists.
He said the authority had spent about two years to develop a master plan to harness the enormous potential in the area for tourism into investment opportunities.
The SADA CEO expressed the hope that more investors would take advantage of the area’s potential in tourism to also grow their businesses.
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