Africa-Press – Ghana. The Ghana Tourism Development Company (GTDC) has engaged tourism agencies and trade associations on its digital platforms that strategically create market and draws investments into the sector.
The two technologically designed platforms, Ghana Tourism Marketplace (GTM), and Ghana Tourism Investments Platform (GTiP), seek to create sustainability, drive more traffic to create value and help sector players to effectively operate a 24-hour system.
Prof Kobby Mensah, the Chief Executive Officer, GTDC, said tourism infrastructure was key to the sector’s growth and the investment platform, when fully operational, would “work like B2B where tourism investment areas in the country would be profiled for investors to come onboard.”
He said the GTM would also be a consumer market where people could choose places to visit, book a hotel, rent a car, buy tickets for events and go shopping among other activities.
“President Mahama has talked about the Black Star Experience….
“We believe that we can use technological innovation to bring all the sector players onto the platform to interact so that one can access services easily, pay for services easily and give their feedback easily,” Prof Mensah said.
The two platforms could be used to aggregate a report to inform the President on daily contributions of the sector and the untarred kilometers of roads leading to tourism sites, he said.
He added that only 25 percent of the arrivals recorded by GTA could generate about $4 million for the Ghana Tourism Marketplace.
Dr Edward Ackah-Nyamekeh, President, Ghana Hotels Association, in an interview with the Ghana News Agency, said the innovative platforms could be the game changer to tackle issues of investment, marketing and recognition (awards).
“These three pillars are very important for the industry and we only pray and hope that they will go the long haul,” he said.
“I’m also particularly happy because they are placing emphasis on the trade associations in the boarding process.”
Dr Ackah-Nyamekeh said trade associations to which he belonged, were important aspects of the tourism regulatory framework though they were largely from the private sector.
“Tourism has always been public sector-led but private sector-driven,” he said.
“What the Ghana Tourism Marketplace means is that if anybody sits anywhere, Ghana, Azerbaijan, China or USA, they can easily see all the enterprises, all the businesses, the tourism sites and make a decision.”
Mr Charles Adu-Gyemfi, President, Ghana Tourism Federation (GHATOF), said the platforms were a bold step towards repositioning the tourism sector and the GTM would link products and services across the tourism value chain.
He urged stakeholders to embrace the reset agenda as a shared opportunity to build a sustainable, resilient and competitive tourism industry that enhanced Ghana’s appeal.
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