Give young people a chance – Beauty queen to govt
A Former Miss Tourism Ghana, Belvy Naa Teide Ofori, has urged government to consider raising young tourism ambassadors if it wants to see the sector live up to its full potential.
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Naa, who made Ghana proud in December last year by coming third at the Miss Tourism Queen of the Year International pageant held in Shanghai, China said if young people were groomed to appreciate tourism right from their childhood, they would be the best people to push the industry forward.
“Young people know what’s exciting, they know what attracts people. Today they have access to so many avenues through which they promote themselves.
“Just take a look at what many of them are doing on social media and imagine if government harnessed their energy, they would push our tourism attractions all over.
“We’ve made tourism unattractive to young people, it seems boring but if government could give them a reason to be excited about this industry, we would make a lot of impact and that is why I intend to start a campaign to groom children into tourism ambassadors soon,” she said in an interview with Showbiz.
Naa is passionate about tourism because she knows how much impact it can have on a country and she believes we can do more to maximise Ghana’s tourism potential.
“Being Miss Tourism has given me the privilege to travel and my eyes have been opened to the opportunities that exist.
“I’ve seen how little things can mean so much to people and the power of marketing and I think there is so much more to be done.”
She went to the Miss Tourism Queen of the Year International pageant, on the ticket of First Royale Events Ghana which holds the franchise and has been sending girls to the event since 2007.
For the nearly three weeks that she was away in China competing against 54 other beauties from different countries (the pageant ran from December 6-22), Naa said she did a good job of selling Ghana.
“I wore braids and I wore lots of print dresses and I made sure to highlight all the attractions about Ghana to the delegates,” she stated.
According to her, the trip was both exciting and overwhelming but she made friends who she is sure would support her future endeavours.
She also expressed gratitude to the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture for supporting her efforts.
Naa is not new to the beauty pageant circuit. She won Miss Tourism Ghana in 2014. Then she was a contestant on Ghana’s Most Beautiful in 2016 where she made it to the final and was the third runner-up.
She is therefore in a good position to advice those wanting to be queens. “It is not easy.
You must be ready to make sacrifices; you always need to be open, smiling even if you don’t feel like it and you need to be welcoming everybody. It also comes with a lot of responsibilities. I’ve done so many projects since I started taking part in pageants and it’s not easy at all but I have enjoyed them too,” she said.
Belvy Naa Teide Ofori is a graduate of the Ghana Institute of Journalism where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Communication Studies.
She is a model and a voice over artiste but wants to pursue music full time.