By Edward Williams
Hohoe (V/R), Sept. 28, GNA – Mr Alexander Nketia, Volta Regional Director, Ghana Tourism Authority (GTA), says data from eight out of 10 tourist sites as of August 2022, generated a revenue of about GH¢315,410,000 in terms of revenue to the various tourist sites and communities.
He said during the same period, there were about 22,181 domestic and 4,921 foreign or international tourists.
Mr Nketia, during this year’s United Nations World Tourism Organization’s (UNWTO) World Tourism Day held in Wa, said the Volta region was a microcosm of Ghana that had everything that tourists would want to experience in Ghana and had not been performing badly of late.
He said tourism was impacting the communities, which would help a lot of people in the communities and was growing since the rollout of the “Visit Volta and Experience Ghana” campaign with the help of all stakeholders.
He said the number of visits recorded by the end of last year was about 27,000 while in terms of revenue, the sites generated about GHC290,000 which showed that there had been a remarkable improvement in 2022.
Mr Nketia said road network, lack of telecommunication network and internet connectivity were challenges for sites in the regions, as most tourist sites did not have the requisite level of development or infrastructure to improve the experience of guests.
Mr Nketia said the government through the Tourism Ministry and Ghana Tourism Authority with support from the World Bank were trying their best to improve some tourist sites including the Tafi Atome Monkey Sanctuary and Cultural Village and Afadjato in Liati Wote and Gbledi.
He said there was also development taking place at Wli, where they were trying to work on bridges leading to the falls, install CCTV cameras and train staff to enhance the expectations of guests.
Mr Nketia said there was also work on the improvement of the information centre facility and some enhancement of the waterfront to make it more experiential for guests.
He said some more sites in the regions would also benefit from the improvement and there would be the provision of customer or guest receptive facilities at sites to improve or ease the comfort of guests as well as interpretation of languages of guests.
He called on the public, especially those in the regions, to participate in local tourism by making domestic tourism a thing for all and at least visit a site around them once every week.
The 2022 celebration is themed, “Rethinking Tourism” which focuses on how tourism recovery could be accelerated through a collaborative engagement of all stakeholders around a shared vision to build a more sustainable, inclusive, and resilient sector.
As part of the celebration, Ghana has developed a sub-theme dubbed; “Promoting Domestic Tourism for Wealth Creation in Communities to grow the interest of Ghanaians in tourism.”
GNA