{"id":779182,"date":"2020-01-09T10:35:10","date_gmt":"2020-01-09T10:35:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ghana-mma.com\/2020\/01\/09\/the-year-of-return-social-media-as-a-tool-to-promote-ghanas-tourism\/"},"modified":"2020-01-09T10:35:10","modified_gmt":"2020-01-09T10:35:10","slug":"the-year-of-return-social-media-as-a-tool-to-promote-ghanas-tourism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2019\/01\/09\/the-year-of-return-social-media-as-a-tool-to-promote-ghanas-tourism\/","title":{"rendered":"The Year of Return, Social Media as a tool to promote Ghana’s tourism"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The Republic of Ghana declared 2019 the \u2018Year of Return\u2019. The campaign put together by the Ministry of Tourism and the Ghana Tourism Authority was to commemorate 400 years since the first enslaved Africans arrived in Jamestown, Virginia,\u00a0in the United States.<\/p>\n

The government has been running a massive campaign targeting African-Americans in the diaspora to return \u2018home\u2019\u00a0albeit\u00a0various\u00a0\u2018welcome home\u2019\u00a0events.<\/p>\n

The major tool used to steer this\u00a0campaign has been social media, and it has been very effective.\u00a0As an entertainment journalist\u00a0here in Ghana,\u00a0I have\u00a0first-hand\u00a0experience of\u00a0how social media, when used effectively, can boost tourism\u00a0campaigns in the country.<\/p>\n

In this\u00a0article, I plan to delve into the importance\u00a0of the digital media\u00a0spectrum\u00a0(DMS),\u00a0with focus on social media\u00a0(SM),\u00a0and how it\u00a0can aid\u00a0the government\u00a0market\u00a0Ghana\u00a0in a cost effective way\u00a0by launching campaigns to target her desired audience.<\/p>\n

When executed effectively, social media could become a major catalyst to boost tourism and also help to establish the sector as a reliable income generator\u00a0for the nation, thus leading to an increase in the country\u2019s GDP.<\/p>\n

\u2018The year of return,\u2019 as a case study, commenced\u00a0on the\u00a01st<\/sup>\u00a0of January,\u00a02019 with a festival dubbed\u00a0\u2018The Tina Festival\u2019. This was put together by UK-based Ghanaian artiste, Fuse ODG in collaboration with\u00a0\u2018The Year of Return\u2019\u00a0committee and the Ministry of\u00a0Tourism Arts &\u00a0Culture.<\/p>\n

The festival\u00a0which welcomed a number of international artistes to Ghana, also brought awareness to the millions of individuals around the world who follow these artistes on their various\u00a0Social Media (SM)\u00a0platforms such as Facebook,\u00a0Instagram\u00a0and\u00a0Twitter.<\/p>\n

For many of them, it served as a touching point to the country and enlightened them about the \u2018Year of Return\u2019 being embarked on.<\/p>\n

For entertainers like Fuse, this was deeper than connecting with one\u2019s roots in Ghana but also as a rallying point for the entire African continent to find a united sense of purpose to develop.<\/p>\n

Soon, everyone wanted a piece of the action\u00a0which was not surprising as Ghana had been named by international media organizations including CNN and Bloomberg as one of the most coveted places on the planet to visit in 2019.<\/p>\n

In the weeks and months that ensued, hundreds of individuals from industries including Boris Kodjoe, Cardi B, Steve Harvey and Ludacris trooped to the motherland to reconnect and complete the journeys of their ancestors.<\/p>\n

\"Ludacris<\/p>\n

Perhaps, the biggest evidence of the reach of Social Media can be captured in the story of underground Ghanaian rapper CJ Biggerman and his encounter with American rapper, Rick Ross.<\/p>\n

The underground act met Ross at the foyer of the Kempinski Gold Coast Hotel, ignored all protocol and went ahead to show his idol his rap prowess via a freestyle that went viral.<\/p>\n

\"Rick<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, it is safe to say that December 2019 posted historic numbers for music concerts and party events organized.<\/p>\n

Events like Afrochella and Afronation, a four-day musical event aimed at bringing the people of African descent together was a major hit as the likes of Shatta Wale, Wizkid and Burna Boy all thrilled patrons while propagating the message of African unity.<\/em><\/p>\n

Ghana can boast of lovely beaches, castles, forts and beautiful landscape\u00a0yet our tourism sector is lagging behind compared to continent leaders like Kenya and Tanzania.<\/p>\n

With the successful staging of the \u2018Year of Return\u2019, Ghana\u00a0has once again become the eye of the storm for reasons other than football and the Black Stars.<\/p>\n

It is time to ride on these waves of diasporan reconnection\u00a0to re-establish Ghana as the stand-out and preferred tourism destination.<\/p>\n

This can be accomplished by improving the facilities at our tourism sites to bring them in tandem with acceptable standards as well as utilizing\u00a0social media campaigns\u00a0by engaging with influencers whose followers are the target audience to help propagate the message.<\/p>\n

Comedian Steve Harvey\u2019s millions of followers were eager to know what Ghana had to offer when\u00a0he posted pictures of Ghana on his\u00a0various SM\u00a0platforms.<\/p>\n

The domino effect is a wide variety of his fellow Hollywood colleagues also deciding that making the trip to Ghana is a worthy cause.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0horde of visitors to Ghana this year has\u00a0undoubtedly helped the economy and local businesses.<\/p>\n

The hospitality industry, especially, has seen a sharp increase in the patronage of their services as hotels and other places of accommodation posted record numbers at their facilities.<\/p>\n

The crafts industry all owned their share of the market as fashion designers and manufactures of local African crafts have all seen their sales sour.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe spent somewhere in the region closer to GH\u00a26 million, so that is like a $1 million to market this locally, internationally including all the supports. It has been like a miracle if you look at even the media aspect of this; having Aljazeera, BBC, CNN, Ebony Magazine, Essence and all of them here, we even had Buzzfeed coming in to do another documentary, we couldn\u2019t have paid for the media,\u201d indicated Akwesi Agyemang Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Tourism Authority.<\/p>\n

The campaign is also believed to have raked in $1.9 billion into Ghana\u2019s economy.<\/p>\n

Sean Parker et al<\/em> couldn\u2019t have put it better when they asserted that \u201cwe lived on farms, then we lived in cities, and now we\u2019re going to live on the internet,\u201d<\/em> an indication of how far the world has come from using very simple methods and tools of interaction to an age where technology through the power of the internet has put the globe in our palms. If DMS is the new world and SM platforms are continents with population almost the size of this true world, then Ghana must position herself now in this DMS era to boost trade and tourism. It works.<\/p>\n

\u2014\u00a0The writer, Nana Adwoa Sarkodie Mensah, is an entertainment journalist with Citi FM\/Citi TV.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Republic of Ghana declared 2019 the \u2018Year of Return\u2019. The campaign put together by the Ministry of Tourism and the Ghana Tourism Authority was to commemorate 400 years since the first enslaved Africans arrived in Jamestown, Virginia,\u00a0in the United States. 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