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Interview with
Mr Mike Afedi Gizo ,
the Minister of Tourism,
August 18th 1999
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Tourism at the moment is the third largest foreign exchange earner for the country. What are the factors that have contributed to this success story?
Ghana has always had the potential but the focus was not on tourism. The government decided at some point to look at this industry and so we prepared our tourism development plan, spanning 1996-2010 and within the plan we had to look at the 4 major areas of tourism; the historical, cultural, eco-tourism and leisure tourism. When you look at all these areas you will realise we have tremendous potential and so when attention was focused on them tourist arrivals increased remarkably. Basically the issue is that tourism is private sector-led; however there is a part that has to be played by the government and that is providing infrastructure; roads, utilities, electricity, and water which the government has done very well.
Where exactly are you concentrating your efforts?
First of all you look at Cape Coast which is the hub and then look at Ashanti for cultural tourism. In Cape Coast we have the Forts and Castles, Kakum National Park which has become a tremendous success because of the canopy walkway and then also to the North for wildlife especially, the Mole game park. Access to all these places has been improved tremendously. Currently we are in the process of improving the road from Accra to Cape Coast which is going to enhance traffic fluidity and travelling to some of these areas. Also we have been marketing Ghana vigorously as a tourist destination. Ghana has been attending some exhibitions, tourism fairs and opening up certain segments which until now were not much heard about. You will also realise that most of the airlines that are operating in Ghana have tremendously improved their frequencies. Ghana Airways, for instance, doing the American segment, is doing about 5 flights presently. We hope it will be doing daily flights to the US which is target for historical tourism development. When you look at the traffic between the UK, Europe and Ghana, you realise that almost all the airlines that are now operating this circuit are also doing about 4 or 5 flights and still requesting for more frequencies. That actually tells the story that people are travelling, hearing more about Ghana and want to see what is happening. A lot of developments have gone on in the areas of accommodation and transportation and we have enhanced some of the attractions. Even though we have done so well, we believe that we need to do a lot more because our target is to receive one million or more tourists a year by the year 2010.
How many are you receiving a year at the moment?
At the moment we are receiving about 340,000.
Would you describe this 340,000 who are coming in as pure tourists or does that include every foreigner who is coming including businessmen?
It includes everybody. The new World Tourism Organisation’s definition of a tourist includes the one who attends conferences, business-men, visitors and those who come purely for leisure. We say that because the man who comes for a conference takes time out to visit, the businessman would also want to see the environment and what opportunities for investment exist or simply do his business. So the new definition of a tourist has completely changed and the WTO believes that we have segments or categories of tourists. Even Ghanaians who live outside and for some reason have not been here for some time and come back to visit friends and relations are considered tourists.
President Rawlings told us that tourism is something which came fairly unexpectedly. It is basically an attribute of the political stability and the economy getting better. How unexpected was it?
That is one very important point because for us the focus was not much on tourism. Ghana emerged as a leader in perhaps democratic and good governance and in development. These are important for tourists but what mattered most was the stability, security and safety of the country. So the assertion of the President is very true and we count very much on that.
Recently Ghana has hosted 2 very important events, one is the African African-American Summit and the other has been the PANAFEST which was held a few weeks ago. How important do you think these events are for Ghana and the Tourist industry and what are the repercussions from events like these?
Certainly hosting events like these enhance the image of the country. As a matter of fact we have hosted the World Tourism Organisation Commission for Africa Conference here and also the Africa Travel Association Conference. That was before the Summit and the PANAFEST and Emancipation Day celebration. What we recognised was the tremendous achievement in bringing together 46 African Tourism Ministers, the WTO itself, about 800 delegates, bringing together, so to speak, African, American and Canadian as well as European observers, to participate in that conference. It was a great achievement because certainly the tour operator who does not know about Ghana, or Africa may not sell tour packages to his part of the world; but once he comes and gets into contact with his counterpart here, then he starts selling packages to Ghana. The African African-American Summit which was also a tremendous success introduced a lot more people to Ghana because there were too many who thought we did not even have good roads here and reasonably high class accommodation. The Summit opened up this nation to visitation; the Emancipation Day which has its own spiritual attachment to the slave trade also brings in a certain type of visitation. The PANAFEST now has assumed an international dimension; the artistes and other participants are from all over the world. These are all products that create a lot more attraction to Ghana.
| Do you find that hosting events such as this is a bit like a snow ball effect where once you host one event then people suggest that more events are held in the country then the more requests you have for future events as well?
Yes. Certainly if you want to have a lot of visitors then you must have things happening each and every time or you must have attractions for people to visit.
There have been complaints about inadequate hotel accommodation especially here in Accra. Is there a deliberate attempt to encourage investors to come in and build more hotels?
Certainly there is a programme to increase accommodation facilities and for that matter there are a number of incentives which the government has placed at the door-steps of investors who will invest in the accommodation sector. For instance, we provide a corporate tax rebate of 25% when the facilities are sited in Accra. When you move outside the capital you are granted an additional 25% rebate and outside the region 50% rebate. There are other tax incentives provided including a waiver of customs duty on items meant for tourism facilities. We have a shortfall of about 4000 beds in Accra and that is an inhibition for people who decide to come this way. Any-body who intends coming is calling to find out about the internationally known hotels and when these are fully booked, then the tourist would not come at all. We are expecting 1 or 2 five-star hotels for Accra in the beach area. Fortunately La Palm is coming up; there is also one which is to come up in place of the collapsed Ambassador Hotel. The airport city project will also include a hotel close to the airport. Besides these, there are a number of requests for hotel projects which we are studying. What we are actually doing is getting our Tourist Board which is the implementing agency to collaborate with such investors. We have other attractions like wildlife, some National Parks, the Shai Hills Nature Reserve, the Mole National Park , Monkey Sanctuaries where the monkeys always come during the day to live with the people and go back in the evening. We also have other attractions like the Kintampo and Boti Falls and the Aburi Botanical Gardens. There is a great potential to be tapped. You may ask what we think about mass tourism. Some people have tried it but we would not want to make that mistake because the success of tourism must be seen in its sustainability. If we destroy the tourism potential in a very short time with mass tourism, you may be creating problems for your country. These are the areas in which having learnt the experience of others, we will want to be very careful so as not to endanger the potential of the growth of tourism in Ghana.
What is the Ministry of Tourism actively doing to (a) promote these attractions to let people know about them and (b) to attract investors from abroad to invest in these areas so as to attract more tourists?
One very interesting approach is what we are doing, talking to media people and letting them spread the good news about Ghana. This year we were able to bring about 15 travel writers into the country, with the collaboration of other agencies, so they could write about Ghana and her immense tourism potential. Secondly, the Tourist Board and the Ministry have been attending exhibitions, fairs and forums to market Ghana. As mentioned earlier we have a range of incentives for investors interested in the tourism sector.
What is your vision for the future of the tourism industry?
As tourism Minister, I wish to see tourism grow to, at least, the expectations of our plans and perhaps go beyond them. We have realised that the tourism industry is the catalyst for the total growth of the economy because once you are able to improve the tourism industry, your agriculture grows; if you are playing host to 3 million people, you must feed them, find places for them to sleep and in doing so your accommodation and construction industries grow; then you will have to look for transport to transport them thereby enhancing your transport sector; manufacturing grows, since your market capacity is improved, and employment opportunities also increase. Tourism, being multi-sectorial and multi-dimensional, will soon become the king-pin of the total growth of the economy.
Do you think that it will overtake gold, cocoa and timber to become the first foreign exchange earner?
I am hopeful that if we do the right thing and we invest in that area, then we will certainly beat those commodities. Some people would want to look at receipts in terms of what goes into government coffers each time; but the quantum of receipts is not determined by what goes into government coffers. Recently there was a conference by the WTO on tourism satellite accounts; we looked at the demand and supply side of the equation and we realised that the ordinary man on the street who is earning something out of tourism is indirectly contributing to the Gross Domestic Product.
As you know our magazine reaches more than 4 million readers, mainly businessman. What is your final message to them?
Ghana is attractive, interesting, secure, safe, stable, with warm people and they should come and see what we have on offer here; and perhaps to the investor community. I would say opportunities abound for investment in the tourism industry, People have seen too much of skyscrapers and must now see something different and we account for one of the new destinations.
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© World INvestment NEws, 1999.
This is the electronic edition of the special country report on Ghana published in Forbes
December 13th 1999 Issue.
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