The Ga Mantse, King Tackie Teiko Tsuru II, has used the visit of the Japanese tourism advisor to him to make a call to government to do something about the plastic menace in the country.
Government, he appealed, should take the bull by the horns and deal with waste in Ghana, especially plastic by either imposing heavy taxes on their imports or invest in biodegradable materials as an alternative.
The Japanese envoy, Dr. Itaru Ishii, Advisor to the Office of the late Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan, is one of the many dignitaries to visit the Accra Overlord since he assumed the traditional oversight of Ga.
That a neat city begets a high number of tourists should have informed the call by the king when he hosted Dr. Ishii.
“We cannot have a tourism appeal if we still continue to do things the way we do them in the past because we haven’t found our foot in cleaning up our plastic waste,” the king said.
King Tackie Teiko Tsuru II, highlighting the beautiful heritage and history of the Ga Dangme people, suggested the formation of a committee in collaboration with the Ministry of Tourism to begin a research that will help maximise the full tourism potential of the Ga Dangme people.
The Japanese envoy, who is also a member of the Japan/ Ghana Friendship League, suggested innovative ways to boost tourism in Ghana. He said, within a year, Japan was able to increase the number of tourists from six million to thirty-eight million when they invited journalists from all over the world to find out the expectations of potential tourists from their specific countries.
According to him, the outcome of this research showed that visitors from different countries had different expectations and wanted to do different things during their visits. He said, armed with this information, the Japanese government established tourism offices in different countries with different missions to promote Japanese tourism tailored to the specific needs of different countries.
Mrs. Gifty Quansah, a retired Director of the Ghana Tourism Authority, who was at the meeting, emphasised the importance of tourism to Ghana and commended the government for establishing the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture. She appealed to the government to invest more in community based eco-tourism to create jobs, preserve incomes as well as preserve the history and culture of the communities.
Dr. Ishii, who was in Ghana to explore the tourism potential of the country, and also, create a new channel for Japanese tourists and investors to visit Ghana, was accompanied by Ambassador Jude Sylvester Parker-Allotey, former Ambassador of Ghana Plenipotentiary to Japan and High Commissioner to Singapore.