The Minister of Tourism, Arts and Culture, Mohammed Awal, has announced that the government will be launching a project to solicit novel tourism ideas from young people.
During his address at an editors’ forum held on Monday August 14, 2023 at the Accra City Hotel, he said the initiative is aimed at imbuing the interest of tourism in the youth and encouraging them to come up with innovative business models for the sector.
“Next year we are going to launch a 100-million-cedi tourism enterprise project to encourage young people to give us projects on sustainable tourism,” he said.
He also noted that next year, the ministry will be training 6,000 young people along the tourism value chain. These people will include cooks, security, tour guides, among others.
“One of our key problems in this country is customer care. I am sure when you go to the tourist sites even the Kwame Nkrumah Memorial park you don’t see people share a lot in terms of customers orientation,” he indicated.
According to the minister, the most important thing in tourism is to get people to repeatedly visit places, a reason they are devising strategies to make tourist develop interest in frequently coming to Ghana.
He added that at present the average stay for visitors who come to Ghana is seven (7) days but the government intends to increase to at least ten (10) days.
Speaking at the forum the Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Tourism Authority (GTA), Akwasi Agyeman also highlighted some of the achievements of the ministry.
“For the first time in the history of Ghana the ministry has successfully undertaken a Ghana tourism development project, a world bank funded project. It has really impacted the entire spectrum in terms of product development, in terms of product development, marketing, sector skills, enterprise support to various people within the industry,” Akwasi noted.
Talking about the future outlook of the ministry, Akwasi Agyeman said they were working on the slave routes experience, crab villages, among others.
He further announced that to improve nightlife in Accra, the are rolling out interventions like the Kwame Nkrumah Park, Nationalism Park, and the Geese Park.
The Beyond the Return initiative, through its December in GH activities, drives a lot of tourists into the country every year.
As part of the effort to make Ghana the biggest tourism destination in Africa, the government has announced that it is working towards attracting two million international arrivals that will result in a $4 billion spending impact by 2025.