Catherine Afeku
A survey conducted by the Tourism Research and Advocacy Centre (TRAC) reveals that Ghana has over the past 30 years made many interventions aimed at boosting the tourism sector to become a major vehicle for the country’s economic transformation.
However, policy-related weaknesses and supply factors such as a defective policy regime, limited attraction offerings, poor supporting infrastructure and a weak operating environment have culminated in stagnated growth, thereby stifling the performance of the sector.
TRAC’s survey sought to find out the state of Ghana’s tourism sector and what could be done to propel it towards growth.
According to the report, Ghana has had mixed fortunes from tourism.
“Even though the sector is grappling with supply factors, macro-economic indicators on the other hand have shown promise of a vibrant sector contributing enormously to the country’s GDP,” it said.
The report also provides a general overview of the performance of the sector over the period in question by capturing and analyzing the performance of the tourism sector over the last few decades precisely since 1985.
The trends are reported along the demand and supply perspectives.
Moreover, the report examined the performance of tourism along certain economic indicators.
The study then looked at the future trends and discussed some problems facing Ghana’s tourism.
“Ghana’s tourism sector on the whole is in a relatively weakened (in terms of arrivals and receipts) state as compared with the 1985-2001 era. Nevertheless, the prospects look bright and it is expected that inbound tourist patronage will grow by 5-10 percent over the 2017-18 period.
“The benefits from such an expected increase are only likely to be realized if conscious efforts are made by government to address the pitfalls and challenges using strategies outlined in the latter sections of the report.”
A business desk report