Ministry of Tourism holds stakeholders meeting on domestic tourism

The Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Creative Arts (MOTCCA), on Wednesday organised a stakeholders meeting to provide a veritable solid policy direction, for developing a strategy and implementation plan and programme to promote domestic tourism.

MOTCCA in collaboration with Graphic Communication Group, the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation and other stakeholders have initiated a programme dubbed: Explore Ghana to facilitate the policy direction.

The programme would also provide an opportunity to show case tourist attractions, cultural heritage and creative arts products and services to Ghanaians.

Mrs Elizabeth Ofosu-Agyare, the sector Minister said the programme would have the capacity to give Ghanaian residents an appreciation of their authentic and unique culture and open up investment opportunities in the sector.

She added that the programme would create job opportunities and employment to promote national unity and cohesion, and educate Ghanaians on diverse tourism, culture and creative arts resources.

The Minister noted that Ghanaians must know their country better to be able to market it to foreigners.

She said: most Ghanaians do not know their loyalty, culture, heritage, natural endowments, districts, regions and the country at large.

She said while international tourism had been highlighted due to its capacity for generating the much needed foreign exchange for destinations, same cannot be said of domestic tourism, adding, statistics on domestic tourism are either unavailable or inadequate.

The Minister observed that there were challenges with domestic tourism but was hopeful private sectors would collectively join hands with the Ministry to invest in the area to solve some of the problems.

Mr Mensah Nyarko, Acting Director of Corporate Affairs of Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) said the aim of GBC was to help push the domestic tourism agenda to the ends of the country with the hope that domestic tourism would become a national agenda.

He said GBC in the month of March would consciously promote Ghana by devoting extra airtime to issues relating to Ghana’s history, music, dance, dress and cuisine.

He said: as a media partner, we will use our airwaves to great effect in support of this important agenda.

Madam Shirley Acquaah-Harrison, Director of Marketing at Graphic Communications Group said the Mirror newspaper would be used to promote domestic tourism.

We believe it is the best brand to use in promoting domestic tourism, she added.

She expressed the hope that the programme would help to educate Ghanaians and also contribute to the country’s GDP.