Embrace opportunities in tourism sector – Minister tells tourists

Ghana’s Minister for Tourism, Culture and Creative Arts, Barbara Oteng Gyasi has urged the business community and diasporians who have accepted the president’s open invitation and are visiting Ghana as part of the government’s year of return programme to take advantage of the vast opportunities available in the country’s tourism sector to invest in the sector.

Ms Gyasi made the call at the opening ceremony of a three-day Heritage and Cultural Society of Africa (HACSA) summit on Wednesday, 7 August 2019 held at the Kempinski Gold Coast Hotel in Accra.

She said: “Government’s agenda to improve on tourism is private sector driven through public private partnership arrangements. I, therefore, wish to take this opportunity to call on our business community and our brothers and sisters from the diaspora to take advantage of the vast opportunities available in our tourist sector in the country to partner our local business as well as government to invest in the tourism sector in Ghana for our mutual benefit.”

For her part, the Vice-President of Liberia, Dr Jewel Howard-Taylor, who was the guest speaker described the city of Accra as the “America of Africa.”

Dr Howard-Taylor said: “Accra has become the America of most of us so instead of going to New York and California, most people come to Accra.”

She commended the government of Ghana for making the capital city, a metropolitan city.

“Madam Minister, thank you and thank your government for all they do to make this a beautiful and thriving Metropolitan city,” Dr Howard-Taylor said.

According to the vice-president, the leadership of Ghana is setting the country up to be a stellar example of what leadership should be.

She said: “Let me first express my deep gratitude to His Excellency Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo president of the Republic of Ghana and the Ghanaian government for providing us this environment to discuss not only our past but our future.

“Ghana is an important place because as you look at the West African region, the leadership here, exemplified by the ministers who are working, are setting Ghana up as a stellar example of what leadership can be.”

The 2019 HACSA summit will examine the 400-year legacy of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade through which African were enslaved, with an aim to link, reunite and reconcile the affected communities and share examples of innovation and creative strategies to overcome that episode’s persisting negative effects.

The summit also coincide with Ghana’s ‘Year of Return’ programme, which, symbolically, marks the 400th-anniversary of the arrival of enslaved Africans in the US and invites the African diaspora back home.