The Ghana Tourism Authority (GTA) has initiated plans to propel the tourism sector to be the leading foreign exchange earner for the country in the next two years.
The plans involve marketing and promoting the country's diverse cultural attributes, heritage sites and natural places of interest to the international community while encouraging residents to explore the various places of interest.
It also involves rewarding service excellence and reprimanding shoddy ones, building the capacity of the industry players as well as improving access to the various places of interest.
Once these are achieved, the Tourism Authority, which regulates the industry, believes visitor numbers to the dozens of tourist sites nationwide will rise and that will translate into increased foreign exchange for the country.
Currently, the sector, which encompasses hospitality and related services, is the fourth foreign exchange earner, coming on the back of gold, cocoa and foreign remittances.
The Acting Executive Secretary of the authority, Mr Sampson Donkor, however, told the GRAPHIC BUSINESS on the sidelines of the ninth National Tourism Awards held on November 29 that the aim was to make the sector the premier exchange earner by 2015.
"We have a five-year programme and the expectation is that by the end of that five-year programme, tourism should supersede all other sectors of the economy, even including petroleum," Mr Donkor told the paper moments after the awards.
The sector raked in about US$1.7 billion in foreign exchange in the first nine months of the year and the Tourism Authority was confident that the figure could double should interventions such as the awards be sustained to spare on the players in the industry to strive to excellence at all times.
The National Tourism Awards was introduced in 1997 as an annual event to recognise, honour and motivate service excellence in the industry.
It was, however, suspended in the last five years for reasons bordering on financial constraints and lack of sponsorship.
The Acting Executive Director of the authority admitted that the silence of the awards since 2008 contributed to a decline in the sector's growth but hoped that its revival would add to the successful execution of the five-year programme being implemented by the authority.
"That is why we decided that we need to revive the awards and also look at the revival of the Tourism School of Training so that as you train people and you set the standards, they will compete to meet the standards," Mr Donkor said.
At the event, the Labadi Beach Hotel at La in Accra scooped the highest award of the night, the Five-Star Hotel of the Year, followed by Fiesta Royale at Dzorwulu, which was adjudged the Four-Star Hotel of the Year.
The Captain of the national team, the Black Stars, was also adjudged the Tourism Ambassador of the Year while Mr Kofi Akpabli, a Freelance Journalist with The Mirror, one of the stables of the Graphic Communications Group Limited, was honoured with the Tourism Journalist of the Year Award.
The Graphic Group was also adjudged the Tourism Oriented Media (Print category) of the Year.
There were also awards for Chop Bar of the Year (Agbeme Heavy in Ho), Drinking Bar of the Year (Treasures Pub Accra) and Night Club of the Year (Aphrodisiac Night Club at Dzorwulu), among others.
Recognition awards were also given to deserving individuals and institutions for their contributory roles to the development and promotion of tourism in the country.
The Minister of Tourism, Culture and Creative Arts, Mrs Elizabeth Ofosu-Adjare, told the paper after the event that the awards were there to stay.
"We have to reward hard work and create healthy competition among players in the industry to make sure that other people emulate the good ones. Once we have named and shamed, I am sure it’s a good initiative enough for others to also work hard to win awards in the next years," she added. GB