Let’s place premium on tourism development
For several years, the tourism sector has remained the fourth foreign exchange earner for the country after Cocoa, Gold, and Oil and Gas.
While tourism’s steady position is a testimony to its potential, the abundance of tourist sites in the country is an open secret. Apart from the three huge castles along the coast – the Cape Coast and Elmina castles, as well as the Christianborg Castle in Accra, the former seat of government, which is now a Presidential Museum, there are other forts begging for recognition.
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There are many ecotourism sites (about 18 wildlife-protected areas), such as the Kakum, Mole, Bui, Bia, Digya, Nini Suhien and Kyabobo national parks; resource reserves such as Ankasa, Gbele and Shai Hills; wildlife sanctuaries such as the Kogyae, Bomfobiri, Kalakpa, Agumatsa, Buabeng Fiema and the Duasidan monkey sanctuaries, as well as waterfalls such as the Kintampo, Wli and Boti.
What is left, however, is the development of all the sites to modern standards to attract more visitors than they are currently receiving.
Every one of the 16 regions of Ghana is replete with tourist sites, some of which very little is known, and which require some attention to bring them to the fore.
The body mandated to do that is the Ghana Tourism Authority (GTA), which oversees all the country’s tourist sites across the country.
So far, the GTA is doing reasonably well to roll out programmes targeted at drawing more foreigners to the country each year.
Programmes such as the Year of Return, Panafest, the Paragliding Festival on the Odweanhoma Mountain in Kwahu, Afrochella, Emancipation, Chale Wote and Heritage Caravan, as well as popular traditional festivals such as Aboakyir, among many others, come to attention.
But while showcasing the rich culture of Ghana to the outside world through festivals and special activities every year is good, the Daily Graphic believes that we are rather overlooking the citizenry.
Though the year has almost come to an end, we still want to hold the GTA to their recent promise that key tourist sites in the country would receive a facelift within the short to medium term this year.
We also want to remind GTA of the ranking by global news network, Cable News Network (CNN) of Ghana as the fourth top destination out of 19 countries in the world to visit this year.
It is only natural therefore that we take tourism to another level this year and urge the GTA to ride on the widely projected image of Ghana by the CNN as a place to visit, to speed up the improvement and development of infrastructure at our tourist sites, to draw not only foreign guests to Ghana, but also encourage full local participation.
In our view, for tourism to peak and most probably overtake the other sectors considered Ghana’s biggest earners, we think that the GTA, in collaboration with other stakeholders including the Ghana Education Service, National Commission on Culture, Ghana Museums and Monuments Board, must deliberately fashion programmes to attract Ghanaians, including students and pupils to our numerous attractions at a token fee to shore up earnings in the tourism sector.
For instance, making it mandatory for pupils to, as part of their studies, visit museums, castles, forts and other monuments in their regions is definitely going to swell up the numbers in domestic tourism.
In other jurisdictions, the locals themselves make tourism a delight, as they are always visiting places of interest in droves and thus keeping the industry alive all year round. Well-trained locals also receive guests and are able to relay the history of the facilities visited.
The Daily Graphic is of the view that the difference between Ghana and those other countries is the fact that visiting their tourist sites is not a Herculean task because access routes are well developed.
There are also numerous attractions that make patrons want to come back again and again because it affords them the relaxation and adventure they need while providing families and friends the opportunity to bond and have fun.