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Opinions on Saturday, October 3, 2020
Columnist: Akua Karle Okyere
2020-10-03
Barbara Oteng-Gyasi, Minister of Tourism, Art and Culture
Tourism, since its dawn, has had multiple meanings and this is to express its multifaceted essence.
From Hunziker and Kraft in 1941, defining tourism as the number of phenomena and relationships that arise from the travel and residence of non-residents, insofar as they do not lead to permanent residence and are not related to any lucrative activity, to the concept later. in 1976 by the Tourism Society of England that tourism is a short-term, temporary movement of people to destinations outside the places where they normally live and work, and their activities during their stay in these destinations; the repetitive tendency to travel for pleasure or business does not disappear in the plethora of definitions.
When you travel as a family or alone from your home to another place inside or outside your country for fun, leisure or business, knowing that in no more than a year you will return home at most, that is tourism right there and you become a tourist there. This brings to mind the key forms of tourism: national and international tourism.
As their names so easily suggest, domestic tourism occurs within the visitor’s country, while international tourism occurs across national borders, such as when traveling for pleasure or business to another country.
There are many other forms or styles of tourism, of course, but the two main types, domestic and foreign, are at the core of these different types or classes.
What would you prefer? Whatever type it is, there is certainly a lot of enthusiasm associated with it.
Tourism remains a great source of income for nations, but tourism has experienced its own ups and downs in all its forms, as the seas have low and high tides. As a result of the strong economic downturn in the late 2000s recession between the second half of 2008 and the end of 2009, and also as a result of the H1N1 influenza virus in 2009, tourism decreased.
This was certainly a low tide season for tourism of some kind, but that was not the end, as tourism rebounded and skyrocketed in a year or two from then, accounting for 30% of global services trade. and invisible exports; and 6% of total goods and services in 2011.
In addition, the global COVID-19 pandemic hit hard from the last months of 2019 to this year 2020, just like several years ago that a low tide season was experienced in the tourism industry, and it did not stop triggering another tidal season low in the tourism industry.
Following travel restrictions in an attempt to monitor the spread of COVID-19, with the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) estimating that international tourist arrivals globally will decline between 58% and 78% this year, the tourism industry has suffered a huge toll causing significant financial losses in international tourism revenue as international travel arrivals fell by 65% in the first six months of this year.
Advance travel has been reduced by 80-90% in many cities around the world, according to BBC News.
These figures reflect the measure of the effects that the tourism industry has experienced in recent times as a result of unforeseen developments. It is true that the industry is recovering, but the pandemic has profoundly affected the conduct of both national and international tourism, as protection measures are still being implemented to prevent new waves of the pandemic.
Every year since 1980, the United Nations World Tourism Organization has celebrated World Tourism Day on September 27 as an international celebration. World Tourism Day aims to raise awareness about the role of tourism in the international community and show how it impacts social, cultural, political and economic values around the world.
This year is no exception, and for the first time in the history of World Tourism Day, a conglomerate of countries will organize this year’s official celebration in an attempt to demonstrate the current need for international unity and cooperation.
The theme for this year’s celebration is “Tourism and Rural Development” and the host countries are Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Chile.
To draw attention to Ghana; For the West African country with a population of more than 27 million, one might ask, “How important is tourism to Ghana?
This question is worth asking because many people focus solely on the excitement associated with tourism and often do not see its effects on the development of this country.
Ghana has a variety of natural, historical, cultural and other man-made attractions and, to name a few of the impacts of tourism in Ghana, is currently the fourth largest source of foreign exchange earnings estimated at US $ 2.2 million in 2015. Again, tourism contributes around 4.8% of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and employs approximately 393,000 people directly and indirectly from hotels, restaurants, travel trade, entertainment, recreation, tourist site managers, among others. However, what else could be done to encourage tourism in Ghana with all these implications?
The Ghana Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture governs tourism in Ghana and the government has made efforts to support the tourism industry in its mandate. Last year 2019, the government of Ghana conducted a major campaign targeting African Americans and the diaspora to visit Africa, specifically Ghana to enjoy and invest in its exciting culture and tourist attractions.
The Year of Return initiative “focused on honoring emancipation from slavery and also acted as a marketing exercise to popularize Ghana as a tourist destination with a transatlantic business message. This year, 2020, within the framework of the Tourism Development Project Government of Ghana (GTDP), the Government of Ghana launched a US $ 9 million tourism grant scheme aimed at rejuvenating the industry. Approximately 1,000 small and medium-sized enterprises in the
The tourism and hospitality sector is expected to benefit from the initiative, which is the first program to support tourism businesses in Ghana. These small and medium-sized businesses also provide the basis for evaluating an individual’s travel satisfaction and, while not as large as their names suggest, the services offered by these businesses add to the growth and attractiveness of the industry. of tourism.
These recent developments in Ghana’s tourism industry indicate a passion for positioning Ghana as a strong tourism destination in Africa and the world as a whole, as outlined by the Ghana Tourism Authority (GTA) goal of attracting 5 million tourists by 2027. It is true that, in all of them, the industry also needs certain elements. The lack of legal approval of development plans unnecessarily delays progress because, among other factors, land acquisition problems make it difficult to implement these plans. The shortage of trained human resources to manage tourist sites in Ghana is also a concern. These, combined with the inattention given to the development of certain tourist sites, such as the monkey sanctuaries in the west and the hippo sanctuary in the High West, to name a few, cripple the development of holistic tourism in Ghana. However, in the face of difficulties, the resilience and enthusiasm of the tourism industry for growth cannot be ignored.
As part of its goal to promote national tourism, the Ghana Tourism Authority launched a campaign under the auspices of the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture.
The aim of this campaign, entitled “See Ghana, Eat Ghana, Dress Ghana, Feel Ghana, was to ignite the people of Ghana with a spirit of” Ghanaian-ness. “This campaign, which saw the combination of cultural tones, popular sight and traditional food from all ten regions of Ghana at the time to evoke a sense of nationalism, as it also featured entrepreneurs whose goods and services support domestic tourism, all in GTA’s attempt to promote domestic tourism in Ghana.
As the saying goes, to whom much is given, much is expected, “GTA does not rest, but continues to prepare for the comprehensive growth of tourism in Ghana and the achievement of its goals in the realization of the World Tourism Day theme of This year, the Ghana Tourism Authority aims to lead the development and management of an internationally recognized hospitality institute that will serve the West African sub-region as it also promises to develop regional theaters to harness culture and the arts.
All of these, although there are more, are aimed at making Ghana competitive and becoming Africa’s chosen destination for business and leisure tourism, creating an atmosphere to attract high levels of investment.
Having achieved this, the GTA would have made substantial progress in rural development, as many of the country’s tourist sites are in rural areas.
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