Catherine Afeku
More than 60 percent of hotels in Ghana have poor online presence, making them invisible to players in the world market which reduces their patronage.
Catherine Afeku, Minister of Tourism, Arts and Culture, who disclosed this recently during a Hospitality Excellence Breakfast Meeting organised by the Ghana Tourism Authority (GTA) on Tuesday in Accra, said GTA is implementing a one-stop shop project to exhibit over 2,000 registered hotels in Ghana on the world market.
Ms Afeku said the project was part of the modules of the National Tourism Single Window Destination that was being rolled out to deepen public access to information on the country’s tourism profile broadly.
It is also expected to increase the marketability of hotels by creating a database to store their information and web portal to connect them to visitors and tourists globally.
Ghana’s tourism sector will enjoy improved visibility worldwide and publicise her rich tourist sites while trumpeting their standards of quality.
Francis B. Gavor, Business Development Manager of SGS, the project’s implementation leader, in a comment, said the system would enable the GTA to mobilise revenue for the development of the tourism sector by deploying mechanisms to enhance tourism levy collection.
All the stakeholders in the tourism industry would be connected and interfaced electronically, while deploying strategies to ensure that the one percent levy charged from tourism operators was paid and monitored.
It would also help in the issuance of certificates for tourism operations by automating registration and licensing processes and cut down delays and the challenges the operators face when acquiring some significant documentation from GTA.
As part of efforts to ensure the successful implementation of the project, a team of more than 13 personnel from key institutions in the tourism sector, including the SGS, GTA and the Tourism Ministry, have been put together to oversee the full execution of the project.
The project team is being led by Professor Kwaku Boakye, a Research Consultant at the University of Cape Coast.
By Samuel Boadi