By Hafsa Obeng / Chanel Acheampong
Accra, June 7, GNA – The Tour Operators Union of Ghana (TOUGHA) has received for the first time the Best Tourism Association award, at the just ended Business Executive Awards, in Accra.
The award was to recognise the efforts and hard work of the association in the tourism and hospitality industry.
Mrs Alisa Osei Asamoah, President of TOUGHA, in an interview with Ghana News Agency, said the award meant that the efforts of the Association had been recognised and would boost their morale to do better in improving domestic tourism.
She said over the past few years, the Association had made strides in ensuring that the tourism and hospitality sector bounced back after the negative effect of COVID-19 by pushing the domestic tourism agenda.
“As tour operators we are making efforts at expanding domestic tourism service in the country because we realised that most of us were doing inbound and outbound and even, and most citizens did not know most of our tourist sites, so we need to whip their interest so that we can also generate revenue for the country.”
Mrs Osei Asamoah also disclosed that the Association as part of efforts to revamp the sector, attended an international conference in South Africa in partnership with the National Association of Travel Agency Nigeria (NATN) to discuss the way forward after COVID.
“Over there, we also took the opportunity to promote Africa and Ghana in particular because Africa has the resources to develop in all areas. This we as an Association has resolved to do at any destination, we find ourselves.”
She said the Association in its efforts has tour most of the tourist site in 13 regions of the country in order to have first-hand information on the state of the sites and the packages they offer in order to sell them appropriately.
The President said domestic tourism was key and urged Ghanaians to show keen interest in it by contacting any tour agency for affordable rates to travel across the country.
GNA