In a move aimed at transforming how young Ghanaians engage with their country’s heritage, the Ghana Tourism Development Company has commissioned its first-ever Campus Tourism Office at the University of Ghana, marking a strategic shift toward positioning tourism as both an academic priority and economic driver.
The office, established in partnership with the university’s Public Affairs Directorate and opened Tuesday at the Legon campus, represents what officials called a deliberate investment in Ghana’s intellectual capital and a bridge between classroom theory and lived cultural experience.
“This is a deliberate investment in the nation’s intellectual capital,” said Abla Dzifa Gomashie, Minister of Tourism, Culture and Creative Arts, in her keynote address. “By locating the office within the university, tourism is affirmed as an academic and developmental priority — relevant to economics, environmental science, performing arts, history and business innovation alike. It belongs in every space where young minds are shaped.”
The initiative aligns with broader national policy under President John Mahama positioning tourism, culture and creative arts as pillars of economic transformation. Educational tourism, Gomashie noted, offers Ghana a competitive advantage in the global marketplace.
“For many international visitors, the University of Ghana is their primary encounter with the country. The experiences created here therefore shape Ghana’s global image,” she said. “Domestic tourism is not merely about local spending; it is about reclaiming Ghana’s narrative by valuing its castles, parks, festivals, markets and creative heritage as sources of dignity and unity.”
‘From campus to countries’
Prof. Kobby Mensah, Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Tourism Development Company, unveiled an ambitious vision: ensuring every university student has at least one travel experience before leaving campus.
Under the program dubbed “from campus to countries,” students from their first year through national service will qualify for highly subsidized travel packages to at least five West African nations — Togo, Benin, Nigeria, Côte d’Ivoire and Burkina Faso — with Kenya and South Africa added to the roster.
“Our objective is to ensure that if a university student, at least, should have one travel experience before you leave campus,” Mensah said. “We’re talking about domestic tourism, and if we don’t start it from the campuses, before you realize the students are developing interest for Dubai and co when they don’t know their own country. So we are trying to ignite domestic tourism from the campuses that makes it more sustainable.”
But the campus itself, he emphasized, is a destination worth exploring.
The University of Ghana boasts multiple heritage sites: the African Studies museum, the Archaeology museum, the Legon Botanical Gardens, university farms, and the tower — described by Mensah as the most elevated point in Accra, offering panoramic views of the Accra plains and seashore where ships can be spotted with binoculars.
The office will launch campus tours Monday through Friday, with evening excursions available. Weekend programming will feature three daily sessions — morning, afternoon and evening. Officials also extended invitations to corporate Ghana to use campus tours for staff motivation and team building.
‘A living monument’
University of Ghana Vice Chancellor Prof. Nana Aba Appiah Amfo noted the serendipity of the moment — having discussed the concept years ago with Mensah when neither held their current positions.
“What he didn’t mention was that we started talking about this long ago, when I wasn’t vice chancellor and when he wasn’t executive director,” Amfo said, drawing laughter from attendees. “Of course, fate will have it that I am now vice chancellor and then he also got elevated to this position.”
Amfo described the university as both custodian and interpreter of national heritage.
“Our campus with its distinctive tropical architecture and its record of producing African leaders itself is a living monument,” she said. “The stories that go along with the structures are equally important. We are situated in a country whose stories stretch from powerful pre-colonial societies through the resilience of our ancestors during the transatlantic slave trade to the triumph of independence and the dynamism of contemporary Ghana.”
The office, she said, serves as a “deliberate bridge” connecting theoretical knowledge cultivated in lecture halls to the living history that surrounds students — particularly important for international students who have chosen the University of Ghana from across the continent and world.
“By embedding structured tourism and heritage engagement into the academic and social fabric of this university, we strengthen our mandate to produce graduates who are globally competent yet firmly grounded in African identity,” Amfo said.
Mensah described the University of Ghana office as a model to be extended to other campuses nationwide. The initiative embraces digital innovation and a “catching them young” philosophy designed to make domestic tourism sustainable across generations.
“The university’s campuses will be easy for us to start with,” he said. “We need to cultivate the behavior or the attitude of getting to understand the country.”
