World Tourism Day, Investment Summit to be held in Tamale

Tamale, the Northern Regional capital, is to host this year’s World Tourism Day and the Northern Ghana Tourism Investment Summit from September 25 to 27, 2017 to open up the tourism sector in the area for investment.

The event, which is under the auspices of the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture (MTAC) and the Ministry of Special Development Initiatives, in collaboration with the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA), will also commemorate this year’s World Tourism Day, which will fall on September 27, on the theme: “Sustainable tourism – A tool for development”, to be held at the Jubilee Park.

It is also to position the SADA zone as a preferred tourism destination and the gateway to Ghana’s Sahelian neighbours.

Pre-launch

Speaking at a pre-launch media briefing in Tamale, the Northern Regional Minister, Mr Salifu Sa-eed, urged media practitioners in the region to support and market some of the key tourism attractions that could be harnessed to their full potential for the benefit of the people of the three regions of the north and the country as a whole.

“It is your reports in the media that will either attract or deter investors. As media practitioners, we must try as much as possible to focus our attention on the positives in the three regions of the north more than the negatives,” he stated.

Private sector

He also called on the private sector to exploit the untapped potential of the region to create market and network opportunities for business growth.

The minister said the government recognised the private sector as the engine of growth of the economy and, therefore, called on operators in the sector to take advantage of the prevailing conducive environment to invest in the region.

Mr Sa-eed noted that,northern Ghana, with the largest collation of ecotourism resources, had the least in terms of visitation and facilities to host tourists, adding that the northern sector accounted for less than five per cent of all hotels in the country and less than 14 per cent of all visitors to the country.

Tourism potential

The Minister for Special Development Initiatives, Madam Mavis Hawa Koomson, said the north was endowed with a lot of tourism and cultural attractions which, when developed to the fullest capacity, would help increase tourism visitation to enable the communities to generate revenue for development activities and appealed to the private sector to partner the government in that direction.

The Deputy Minister of Tourism, Arts and Culture, Dr Ziblim Bari Iddi, reiterated the government’s commitment to the development and promotion of tourism in the country to make Ghana the preferred tourist destination in the sub-region.