Accra, Sept. 24, GNA - Over one million Ghana cedis is derived from ecotourism annually, Mr Douglas Nanka-Bruce, Deputy Director of Ghana Rural Ecotourism and Travel (GREET) said on Thursday.

He explained that average revenue earned per visitor or tourist to an attraction site before the Ghana ecotourism project started was three Ghana cedis but that amount had increased over the years to about five Ghana cedis.

Mr. Nanka-Bruce urged communities with tourist attractions to embrace the project to enable them benefit from tourism. He was addressing the international tourism conference organised as part of the World Tourism Day celebrations on the theme: "Tourism - Celebrating Diversity."

Mr. Nanka-Bruce explained that ecotourism which meant promoting responsible travels to natural areas used for environmental conservation purposes, could also be used as a tool to improve the living standards of the local people in a community.

He said GREET was involved in a community based ecotourism project to train local people to effectively manage tourist sites to the benefit of their communities.

Mr. Nanka-Bruce explained that the project aimed at securing sustainable resource management was currently being undertaken in 31 tourist sites to help improve revenue and increase the number of visits to the sites. He urged tour operators to promote ecotourism sites to enable GREET achieve its target of one million visitors to ecotourism sites by 2012.