Some participants at the meeting
President of Earth Rights Ghana, Enimil Ashon, has warned that if the hospitality industry does not come up with ways to reduce its contribution to climate change, the number of tourists visiting the country will reduce drastically, thus negatively affecting the industry’s contribution to the GDP.
This was shared at a stakeholder engagement organised by Earth Rights Ghana, in collaboration with the Ministry of Tourism, Arts, and Culture and the Ghana Hotels Association under the theme, “Greening Ghana’s Hospitality: The Feasibility.”
According to the President, 8 per cent of tourism and hospitality activities contribute to climate change. Emissions from plane rides, misuse of energy and electricity by the hotels, the waste of food as well as other activities were cited as some of the ways the sectors contribute to making the climate worse.
The meeting was therefore held to gather players in the hospitality sector as well as international bodies to educate them on how tourism negatively impacts the environment, especially in the disposal of waste, and measures to reverse the trend.
“If we do not start coming up with solutions, tourists will refuse to come to the country because of the extreme damages made on our climate. So with the recent tourism events organised by the government such as Beyond the Return and others, we will notice that the number of foreign attendees of these programmes will reduce because of how terrible our climate will be,”Mr. Ashon highlighted.
President of Ghana Hotels Association, Dr. Ernest Edward Nyamike, expressed his hopes that solutions form climate change would be derived from the meeting.
“The Ghana Hotels Association form part of the bigger travel, tourism and hospitality industry. This is an industry where we have been made to understand that we contribute a lot to climate change. So for this particular forum, we are here to see how we can present our case in terms of our contribution to make the environment safer and more sustainable,”he stated.
Technical Advisor at the Ghana Tourism Development Project, Professor Gabriel Eshun, advised all individuals involved in the hospitality sector to do what is right to help alleviate climate change and boost tourism.
“If someone visits a place and likes the environment, that person will spread the word to others inciting them to also visit the area, which helps create an awareness of the environment’s existence and invites more people to visit the place. Therefore, in order to maintain the physical ambience of Ghana, the hospitality industry has to look at ways in which we can adopt green ways into our activities. It must be done so as to improve tourism in the country,” he added.
By Abigail Atinuke Seyram Adeyemi