Business association to promote domestic tourism
The Managing Director of the World Trade Centre (WTC) - Accra, Mr Emmanuel Doni-Kwame, has said his outfit will champion the cause of promoting domestic tourism as part of initiatives to drive investments into the country.
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The tourism sector, he said, had been neglected for a while, but as businesses that want to drive investments into Ghana, revamping the sector was a prerequisite.
In an interview with the Graphic Business on May 18, he said the WTC-Accra, as part of the moves, had met with the sector minister to deliberate on how the country could develop tourism sites to appeal to both Ghanaians and foreigners.
“We recently paid a courtesy call on the Minister of Tourism to see how best we can develop the sector for Ghanaians to know more about their country and project it to others and also how we can get business delegations coming into Ghana to visit these sites,” he said.
According to him, businesses could promote their country through leisure and not just business meetings and exploration of investment opportunities.
“What we want to do is to contribute our quota as World Trade Centre- Accra to developing the tourism sector. Businesses promote their country by not just getting visitors in but through leisure as well,” he said.
He said the World Trade Centre association met once every year for its general assembly meeting and with Ghana gearing up to host the WTC in the future it was necessary to develop the domestic sector.
“Once you host a general assembly, you must have a tour package attached to it. This is because you will be bringing the rest of the world to Accra,” he said.
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Influencing policy
Mr Doni-Kwame said as an association of businesses, it was necessary for them to learn ideas from other countries to influence policies in the country to ultimately create the enabling environment for businesses to thrive.
He said Ghanaian businesses might go on trade missions to foreign countries to get partners but if the local conditions were bad, it would be an exercise in futility.
“If the conditions here are not good, even when they get business partners they will not even come. The onus is on us as business people to also influence policy. So as we go on these trade missions, we go to learn; as we interact with people you get ideas, but you don’t need to reinvent the wheel, but we will see how we can partner the government to implement the ideas,” he said.
Centralia 2016
Twelve companies from Ghana will take part in the 2016 edition of Centralia, a global business forum, taking place in Canada. The delegation from Ghana will be looking at exploring business opportunities in the Finance, Oil, Gas & Mining as well as the construction and infrastructure sectors.
The delegation from Ghana will be led by the Chairman of the World Trade Centre (WTC), Accra, Togbe Afede XIV. Centralia has been designed specifically for businesses seeking new opportunities and would bring together over 700 business leaders from more than 30 countries.