Commentary on World Tourism Day

The tourism industry is one of the largest industries in the world, comprising 924 million international tourists in 2008 and accounting for 30% of the world's exported of services. By way of revenue, global tourism generated US$856 billion  in 2007.

World Tourism Day has been set aside by the United Nations World Tourism Organization to foster awareness among the international community on the importance of tourism and its social, cultural and economic values.

The theme for this year's World Tourism Day which is the first to be help in sub-Saharan Africa is “Tourism: celebrating Diversity”. The theme highlights the importance of tourism and globalization as well as job opportunities that tourism creates in many industries.

Tourism creates job opportunities in agriculture, manufacturing, retail trade and other important business components such as guide services, shopping, transport, entertainment, accommodation, photography and many others.

Since all over the world it is a well known fact that the tourism sector is an essential contributor to economic development, it is important for all countries and players within the industry to take advantage of every opportunity and exploit it to the fullest.

In Ghana, for example, an estimated US$1.4 billion was realized from the tourism sector in 2008, making it the fourth highest foreign exchange earner after Gold, Cocoa and remittances from Ghanaians resident abroad. Unfortunately, Ghana has not been able to realize her full potential in tourism development. For Africa as a whole, it is expected that the continent will have an additional 27 million visitors by 2010.

This shows that Ghana has a fair opportunity to grow and increase her share of African tourist arrivals. In fact, Ghana's primary objective is to attract one million visitors into the country by the middle of the year 2012, mainly from the UK, Germany, USA and other parts of the World.

These tourist arrivals, it is expected, will also come from Ghanaians living abroad as well as Ghanaians and expatriates living in Ghana. This requires that we develop our tourism products and services, inform and educate the public about tourism and cultivate the desire for people to see Ghana as a vital tourism destination in West Africa.

To be able to do this effectively, there is the need to improve accessibility to the country as well as tourism sites and also focus on training of human resources within the tourism industry while offering better value-for-money inclination to all tourists.

The purpose of World Tourism Day is to promote awareness among the international community of the importance of tourism. Consequently the tourism sector in Ghana must be well streamlined if it is to taken advantage of the day and be socio-economically successful, sustainable as well as achieve its development objectives.

BY:  KOFI AMPONSAH-BEDIAKO, MARKETING AND PUBLIC RELATIONS DEPARTMENT, GHANA STANDARDS BOARD.