Arts, Culture and Tourism

Arts, Culture and Tourism although closely intertwined are sll separate sectors with disnct roles Each requires a separate treatment to unravel an aspect of their funcon and impact on society. For coherence, this arcle will focus on tourism development with the tacit understanding that arts and culture are important enablers of tourism. Thus, there can´t be any meaningful development in tourism without a meaningful development in arts and culture.

Ghana,afavouriteholidaydesnaon?

It would seem the world descends on Ghana every December Thousands of holiday makers fly in to enjoy themselves in a variety of fun filled acvies.Theycomefortheconcerts,thepares, the tours and the general cultural emersion Social media lights up with their comments, pictures and videos; feeding into the frenzy of a ¨DecemberinGhana¨astheplacetobe.

December is only a culminaon of yearlong acvies as a steady stream of tourists fly into the country throughout the year Notable among the inflows are popular American celebries whose visits help to push the hype of desnaon Ghana. This impression is further bolstered by a lot of internaonal media aenon, whether organic or organised. Ghana oen comes up in all sorts of publicaons and news reports as an important touristdesnaoninAfrica.

With so much aenon on the country, it is not uncommon to see social media comments from cizens of neighbouring countries, parcularly Nigeria, berang their governments for failing to orchestrate such excitement about their own countries. They would oen wonder what Ghana isdoingrightthattheyaren't?

It would appear that one iniave, in recent mes, the Ghanaian government got right was the Year of Return (YOR) implemented in 2019 to mark the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in America. It was a PR success which helped to spur a renewed interest in the country The private sector took advantage to launch new programmes or intensify exisng ones. Major cultural and musical concerts such as Afrochella (now AfroFuture), Afronaon and The Black Star Fesval have all leveraged the iniave.

With all the excitement around Ghana and the many acvies and iniaves promong Ghana as a major tourist desnaon in Africa, one would imagine that the country will rank high as one of the connent´s major tourist desnaons. But, it does not. Ghana does not even feature in the top 10desnaonsinAfrica.

In the United Naons World Tourism Organisaon´s 2019 rankings, the top three most visited countries in Africa were Egypt (13.0 million visitors), Morocco (12.9 million) and South Africa (10.2 million). The boom three were Ivory Coast (2.0 million), Kenya (1.9 million) and Botswana (1.7 million). In-between were Tunisia (9.4million), Algeria (2.4million), Zimbabwe (2 3million) and Mozambique (2 million).

In comparison, Ghana received a lile over one million visitors in 2019 according to figures released by the Ghana Tourism Authority. In the authority´s last report for 2022, total visitaons stood at 914,892. It is quite clear that Ghana in nowhere near the big boys when it comes to tourisminAfrica.

HighontheNumbers

In the excitement following up from the Year of Return (YOR), many government officials bandied figures about that sought to create the impression of an unprecedented growth in Ghana´s tourism in order to claim as much polical dividends as possible. Official sources revealed that Ghana cashed in 1.9 billion dollars as a result of the YOR. This figure was widely quoted by many internaonal publicaons. The amount was, however, challenged by many experts as unfounded and overexaggerated. Policy analyst Bright Simmons, wring for the Africa Report in January 2020 stated that ¨the danger in elevang phantom figures to the level of truth is in the complacency they can breed¨.He stressed that ¨sounding the alarm about these widely publicised and widely believed numbers is the wish to forestall such a bad outcome and to movate the authories to see their successful markeng and communicaons strategies as merely the foundaon on which to erect a truly effecve sales plan for Ghana´s tourism and investmentclimatepotenal.¨

Bright Simmons is spot on with his observaon that any lile success realised so far must be seen as a foundaon to build on. For the success is indeed lile in terms of traffic. A surgical analysis of the figures will reveal that Ghana´s tourism growth is consistent with past projecons and that the current iniaves have not led to any dramac increase in tourist numbers. At least not yet. At best, a few tens of thousands more visitors might be the marginal increase in visitors as a resultofrecentcampaigns.

TheBoomsandBursts

Of course, one that does not expect markeng effort to bear immediate results But it is important to note that Ghana has had cycles of boom in its tourism experience followed by corresponding bursts. This will not be the first meGhana has beeninthe spotlight.In fact,right f ro m t h e in c ep o n o f t h e co u nt r y ´ s independence, there was great excitement around the country Ghana was a mecca for freedom fighters and pan-Africanist. Many notable black leaders such as W. E. B. Du Bois,

George Padmore, Marn Luther King Jnr, Maya Angelou and Mohammed Ali were all here. Kwame Nkrumah´s drive for a united Africa also brought in many African leaders to Ghana. One can, indeed, say that in the late 50s to early 60s, Ghanawastheplacetobe.

The overthrow of Kwame Nkrumah and the subsequent military intervenons that followed created instability that would have affected visitaons into the country. Nonetheless, Ghana sll hosted one of the biggest concerts in its history, Soul to Soul, in 1971. It featured some of the most iconic American stars of the me—James Brown, Ike, Tina Turner, Santana, Wilson Picket, among others The Blackstar Square overflowed with tens of thousands of people who came to enjoy the once-in-life-me experience. The concert made waves around the worldandhasalmostbecomethestaffoflegend.

Another important epoch in the meline of Ghana´s tourism drive is the Pan African Historical Theatre Fesval (PANAFEST) iniated by Efua Sutherland and launched in 1992 by then President Rawlings to encourage a reconnecon of Africa and its diaspora For many years, PANAFEST was a big deal and a major item on the naonal calender. It garnered a lot of internaonal aenon and became an important pilgrimage for people of African descent who came in their thousands. The fesval is sll on to this day, albeit without much of the luster in beganwith.

These examples are to demonstrate that there have always been moments of aenon and excitement around Ghana. Indeed, there is an organic pull of people, especially, the African diaspora, to Ghana because of the many enslaved people who were transported from here to the new world. And, also, the important role Ghana has played in the Pan-African struggle. Taken together, the various tourism projects launched over the years and Ghana´s natural pull factor guaranteesacertainsteadystreamof visitorsinto the country. But this has not been enough to put us up there with the big players in Africa´s tourism The potenal is, however, there for Ghana to leverage its posioning to dramacally increase traffic into the country. For that to happen though, we need a NEW DEAL FOR GHANA

Tourism

TheNewDealforGhanaTourism

Over the years, there have been a myriad of laws, policies and iniaves meant to bolster Ghana´s tourism industry. The ideas are there, the plans have been drawn and some acons have been taken. What is, however, missing is an overarching vision and ambion to connect the dotsandwhipallstakeholdersinline.

Ghana must aspire to rank within the top 10 most visited countries in Africa. It must set for itself a target to increase annual visitaons from 1 to 5 million visitors within 10 years by leveraging a USD10billioninvestmentintothetourismsector.

Polical leaders must seriously recalibrate their thinking around economic management away from the overreliance on natural resources to the creaon of new economic value that completely transforms the tradional structure of the economy

Since independence, polical ambion has always been to industrialise the economy as a path to prosperity Every government has pursued this elusive dream and 56 years on, we are nowhere closer to being labeled an industrialised economy Perhaps this is so because it is not in the interest of the global capitalist world order to have an industrialised Africa. The connent must necessary remain at the boom of the pyramid feeding the industrial epicenters in the West and these days, the East—with raw materials. It is, therefore, not surprisingthathardlyanycountryinSub-SaharanAfricacanbesaidtobeindustrialised.

For Ghana, even as we connue to seek industrialisaon, how about we take compeve advantage of some low hanging fruits to bring in billions of dollars annually to support our economic growth? Tourism is easilywithinourreach.

We need a polical leader whose ambion will be to transform the economy in such a way as to make tourism the number one earner. If he or she succeeds, it would mean a fundamental shi has occurred and new value has been created, and its ripple effects will be so impacul across the economy New wealth wouldhavebeenbecreated.

Any meaningful transforming in Ghana´s tourism industry leading to dramac increase in traffic will have to emerge from a new deal, from an obsessive ambion to transform. Without that, we will connue to just checktheboxesandalltheexcitementaroundbrandGhanawillnotleadtoanymeaningfulimpact.

Unprecedentedinvestment

If we want to play in the big leagues, we must bring out the big guns. There can't be any dramac change in the fortunes of our tourism industry without a dramac transformaon in our tourism infrastructure, experiencesandrelatedservices.Thisrequiresmoney.Alotofit.Itwillonlytakeagovernmentwhosemajor priority is tourism to put in the kind of work geared towards aracng the colossal investments it needs to transform the sector. Leveraging a USD10 billion financing will have to come through a variety of sources: budgetary allocaons, foreign direct investments, tourism bonds, public-private partnerships, buildoperate-transfereeagreements,amongothers.Wherethereisawill,therewillbeaway.

It is important to note that any such colossal investment will not be at the expense of the general naonal development agenda. The things that tourism needs to thrive are also things that cizens need; good roads, good public transport, good sanitaon, good healthcare, good infrastructure, good public services and many others. Moreover, the dividends from massive investment into tourism will spur general economic growthtothebenefitofall.

There are many policies and iniaves needed to transform the tourism sector and many of these have already been in the conversaon for years. This arcle has sought to highlight what it believes is the missing link and the most important element needed for any dramac transformaon in Ghana´s tourism development—the ambion to make tourism the biggest sector of the economy and the will to see it through. We must aim at the heavens, and even if we only reach the stars, we would have sll made significantprogress.