Scene from the previous paragliding festival
The Ghana Tourism Authority (GTA) has given assurance that all is set for this year’s paragliding festival, which will take place from Good Friday, March 30 to Sunday, April 1, on the Kwahu ridge in the Eastern Region.
The paragliding festival, which coincides with Easter celebrations at Kwahu, is one of the flagship events of the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Creative Arts; and this year’s event is dubbed, “You Too Can Fly.”
The annual festival, organized to promote domestic tourism in the country, is expected to attract a large number of tourists as well as local and foreign pilots who will fly passengers during the occasion.
According to the chairman of GTA, Akwasi Agyemang, “We are also bringing in top ten pilots from around the world to ensure the success of the event, whilst efforts are being made to train 12 local pilots who will partake in the event in some few years to come.”
He said new pavilions had been built at the site to comfortably accommodate the expected tourists – both local and foreign – in a relaxed atmosphere as they wait patiently for their turn to fly, adding that the take-off point has now been expanded to enable three pilots to fly people at a go in order to attend to more prospective paragliders.
Mr Akwasi Agyemang said this year’s edition of the festival – which has gained prominence in the West African sub-region – promises to be an extraordinary event because of the improvements that had taken place at the paragliding site.
The GTA chairman, appealed to all stakeholders to come together to support the event and called on Ghanaians to participate fully in this year’s festival rather than leaving it for foreign tourists.
Besides the festival, a series of activities have been lined up by the organizers for this year’s Easter festivities.
Some of them include street jams, concert party show, highlife and hiplife musical concerts – which will feature a number of celebrated Ghanaian artistes – and football gala.
By George Clifford Owusu