Cape Coast, July 15, GNA- A Tourism Professor at the University of Cape Coast (UCC), has said there was the need for Ghana to push tourism at the highest political level for development.
Prof Kwaku A. A. Boakye, said the country must establish a clear and workable policy regime coupled with sound governance and management practices to enable it realise the full development potential of tourism.
He therefore called for the establishment of a tourism coordinating committee at the cabinet level of government to push the cause of tourism as a vehicle for development.
Professor Boakye, the Dean of Office of International Relations of UCC, was delivering his professorial inaugural lecture on the theme: “Tourism as a vehicle for Ghana’s development: Mirage, Miracle or Myth?” at UCC.
“When the political establishment at the highest level involves itself in tourism, miracles happen. The Year of Return has given us the best figures of arrival and revenue and some of us think it is not because of the Year of Return but because of the involvement of the President himself,” he said.
Chaired by Professor Johnson Nyarko Boampong, the Vice Chancellor of UCC, the lecture is one in a series commemorating the school’s 60th anniversary.
The anniversary is expected to be climaxed with a grand durbar on October 20, 2022 when the institution will turn exactly 60 years.
Professor Boakye observed that despite the vast potential, tourism development remained a mirage for the country due to poor management practices and the lack of proper structures.
He said between 2009 and 2019, the number of licensed facilities providing tourism and hospitality services more than doubled but with minimal development.
“Tourism per se does not guarantee development. The mere presence of tourists does not necessarily translate into developmental outcomes such as reduction of poverty, hunger and economic growth,” he stressed.
Using Elmina as a case study, he intimated than more than one million tourists had visited the historic coastal town since 1992 but they had very little to show for it.
He observed that a big part of the problem was due to a high incidence of leakages as service providers, instead of purchasing their goods from the region, purchased them from other regions.
He added that the non-existence of a functional visitor centre and the absence of complementary attraction in the town limited spending opportunities.
Professor Boakye noted that the structural issues in tourism had been ignored with focus rather on things that were not directly critical to the sustenance of development.
He noted for instance that there was a disproportionate emphasis on marketing and event while policy was relegated to the background.
“Much of our effort is about how we will bring the tourists in but it is not how they come in but how their presence translates into palpable developmental outcomes,” he emphasised.
He warned that disgruntled residents could turn violent and confrontational if they continued to be denied the benefits of tourism.
The tourism professor advised that deliberate effort must be made to model tourism as an agent for local economic development and re-emphasise marketing of tourism.
He further added that it was critical to build the capacity of destination managers and create structures and strategies that could help realise developmental outcomes.
“We need to set up a well-coordinated destination management organisation which receives and coordinates the movement and flow of visitors. In that we can now start charging entry fees,” he said.
“We need to set up a tourism community fund which channel funds from these entry fees and contributions from the destination management organisation into procuring development,” he added.
Professor Boakye was promoted to the professorial rank in 2017.
During his 18-year career as a tourism academic, he has published more than 45 scholarly and technical papers and played a key role in the number of projects and committees for the Government of Ghana and other international bodies on tourism development.
GNA