Ghana aims to eat into China’s $129-b tourism purse

Ghana is aiming at whipping up a lot more Chinese interest in its tourism sector by gnawing into the Asian giant’s $129-b annual spending in the sector.

Ghana’s tourism sector made a strong presence at leading international fairs in Europe in the first quarter of 2015.

It recently participated in the FITUR International tourism fair; Vakantiebeurs Tourism Fair in Utrecht, Netherlands; and the world’s leading international Tourism Bourse (ITB) Berlin in Germany.

The sector has now refocused its international marketing and promotional drive to the Asian Tourism Market and is participating in the ongoing 11th China Outbound Travel Tourism Market (COTTM) in Beijing, China.

Ghana’s Minister of Tourism, Culture & creative Arts, Mrs. Elizabeth Ofosu-Adjare, who is leading a delegation of the private and public sector to the fair, is convinced the Chinese tourism market represents a significant part of the world’s tourism receipts and Ghana will have to take a fair share of that market.

She said Ghana has intensified its efforts at attracting a fair share of China’s $129-billion dollar tourism purse.

Mrs. Ofosu-Adjare further stated that as a precursor in attracting a fair share of the Chinese market, Ghana’s embassy in Beijing is in advanced talks with the Chinese government to establish a Ghana visa centre in Beijing to facilitate visa acquisition for Chinese outbound travellers.

She said Ghana is poised towards sustaining this marketing effort in the Asian tourism market.

As part of the ministry’s effort at exposing practitioners in the creative arts industry to international trade, an invitation was extended to the creative art industry by the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Creative Arts to participate in this year’s COTTM Fair.

Ghana’s delegation was also made up of directors from the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Creative Arts, officials from the Ghana Tourism Authority, Forestry Commission, Ghana Tourist Development Company, Jet Away Travels, Apstar Tours, Joy Industries Limited and Land Tours.

Ghana’s Apstar Tours won an award in the category of product innovation at the China Outbound Tourism awards.

COTTM is regarded as the industry’s most important platform and remains the only business-to-business event that focuses purely on the burgeoning Chinese outbound market. It was attended by over 5,000 Chinese trade buyers from the leading outbound tour operators and travel agents.