GH¢100m voted for tourism enterprises - Dr Awal

The Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture has set aside GH¢100 million to promote youth-led tourism enterprises.

This is in view of the tremendous contribution the sector is making to the economy and development of the country.

The Minister of Tourism, Arts and Culture, Dr Ibrahim Mohammed Awal, who disclosed this in Accra yesterday, said the government, through his outfit, was poised to change the narrative as far as tourism, arts and the development of culture was concerned.

Speaking at a forum with selected editors, he stated that the ministry would also train 6,000 young people along the tourism value chain on customer orientation as part of efforts to improve the sector.

The increased attention on tourism stems from its high prospects, which is now the third leading contributor to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

The sector contributed about $3.1 billion in 2021.

The sector is projected to contribute about $4 billion to the GDP by 2025.

The services sector which includes the tourism sector contributed 45.8 per cent at basic prices last year, the largest contributor to GDP.

Destination Ghana project

Dr Awal said it was the ambition of his office to position the country as a Meetings, Incentives, Conferencing and Events (MICE) and business tourism centre, stressing the need for the country to leverage the peace, its best airport and connectivity to boost tourism.

He said the government was also championing the “Destination Ghana Project”, a four-year project aimed at attracting two million international arrivals in the country and two million domestic tourists.

“We are going to modernise the Du Bois Centre next year, the Osu Christiansburg Castle and other tourist attractions.

We are doing a lot outside Accra to attract tourists, both domestic and international,” Dr Awal indicated.

“The ministry will build new museums across the country and a heroes’ park for the Big Six,” Dr Awal explained.

The Minister of Tourism, Arts and Culture added that the ministry had embarked on a number of engagements with stakeholders, including the business community, academia and the diplomatic community as part of efforts to put tourism, arts and culture at the centre of every activity.

Economic advancement

The Minister of Information, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, for his part, reiterated the call to build partnership with the media to push the sector to the front burner.

 “When you look at the numbers closely, the tourism sector is about the third largest contributor to GDP,” the minister said.

That, he said, meant that tourism was the third largest sector where there were productive activity, jobs and incomes to improve the quality of lives of people.

Describing the sector as a huge sector for the economic advancement of the country, Mr Oppong Nkrumah said a lot of the interventions that had been going on in recent times were key to helping move the economy.

He, therefore, urged the media to help create more awareness of tourism, arts and culture of the country by putting it on the front burner.

In that regard, the Information Minister said, the media must tell stories on the status of developments in the sector, the medium-term plans, policy and programmes of the sector and also help with feedback.

Mr Oppong Nkrumah further stressed the need for the media to encourage partnerships and closer collaboration in the tourism, creative arts and culture sector.

Presentation

In a presentation titled “Ghana’s Tourism Odyssey,” the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Ghana Tourism Authority (GTA), Akwasi Agyeman, said there had been a conscious effort to improve tourism product offerings to make them more enticing.

Coupled with that, he said, there had been a massive marketing drive in the last five years, while laws had been passed to make the sector more attractive.

Mr Agyeman also mentioned the efforts made by the sector in terms of monitoring and research to improve all aspects of tourism.

Those included improving and making nightlife in Accra, for instance, more exciting, giving craft villages a facelift and helping build the enclave mentality within the nation’s capital, Accra.