General News of Friday, 2 March 2018
Source: kasapafmonline.com
2018-03-02
Minister for Tourism, Arts and Culture, Hon. Catherine Abelema Afeku
The Minister for Tourism, Arts and Culture, Hon. Catherine Abelema Afeku, Thursday, told a forum of global tourism investors to turn their attention to Ghana and invest in the West African nation.
Ghana as the center of the world, according to the Tourism Minister, has a lot of untapped business opportunities, especially, in the tourism industry, which if well exploited, could yield high returns.
For instance, she said there is a huge market for accommodation in the tourism hospitality industry in Ghana where quite a number of first class hotels are in high demand as a result of the (MICE) market, meetings, incentives, conferences and events and or exhibitions.
The West African nation presently has only 2,700 hotel rooms. With a vision to establishing 11,000 hotel accommodations, the Tourism, Arts and Culture Minister noted that the situation begs for more investment in order to realize that dream, stressing that is the vision of the President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.
Another area worth exploiting, Hon. Catherine Afeku highlighted, is the aviation industry where there abound plenty opportunities for investment.
“Ghana is yearning for aviation hub where we can have direct flights from Malta to Accra and other countries. This will improve on tourism and opens up business opportunities for the Mediterranean market”, she noted.
In addition to that, she said the Creative Arts and Culture subsectors are high potential areas that need to be harnessed, urging the global tourism players to look nowhere further than the former Gold Coast, to do business with.
Hon. Catherin Afeku made this observation when addressing the 5th Mediterranean Tourism Forum which was held at the Hilton Hotel in St. Julian’s, Malta.
The event which was organized by the Mediterranean Tourism Foundation (MTF) was under the theme ‘Mediterranean Blue; Beautiful Life unites everyone’.
The MFT was established by the Malta Hotels and Restaurants Association (MHRA) with the aim of increasing the potential for sustainable tourism growth across the Mediterranean region.
Commenting further, Hon. Afeku, who was dressed in a sparkling Kente cloth and beaming with much confidence, told the business community to also consider investing in the human capital development of the Ghanaian economy, believing that is the springboard towards achieving greater things and sustaining the level of development the country is aspiring to achieve.
Event management, according to the Minister, is another area worth considering investing into, highlight the myriads of festivals, and other cultural activities that if properly packaged and sold, will bring in high returns.
Ghana’s natural resources ranging from 540 km coastline, sandy beaches, waterfalls, national parks, rivers and man-made Volta Lake, she added, are all areas that need massive investment to expand the Ghanaian economy.
She assured the global forum of a peaceful and congenial environment to sustain their business.