Ghana to increase tourism traffic from China

Mrs. Elizabeth Ofosu-Adjare, Minister of Tourism, Culture and Creative Arts, has said Ghana’s Tourism sector was leaving no stone unturned in its quest to increase tourism traffic from China to Ghana.

She contended that the first quarter of 2015 had seen the sector making strong presence at leading International Fairs in Europe.

“Ghana recently participated at the FITUR International tourism fair, Vakantiebeurs Tourism Fair in Utrecht, Netherlands, and the world’s leading International Tourism Bourse (ITB) Berlin in Germany,” she added.

In a statement issued to the Ghana News Agency on Monday in Accra, Mrs Ofosu-Adjare said the sector had now refocused its International marketing and promotional drive on the Asian Tourism Market, and was participating in the on-going 11th China Outbound Travel Tourism Market (COTTM) in Beijing, China.

She was convinced the Chinese tourism market represented a significant part of the world’s tourism receipts, and Ghana would have to take a fair share of the market.

She added that China was leading in International Tourisim, with 129 billion dollars in expenditure and hence Ghana had intensified its efforts in attracting a fair share of the Chinese market.

Mrs. Ofosu-Adjare further stated that, as a precursor in attracting a fair share of the Chinese market, Ghana’s embassy in Beijing was in advanced talks with the Chinese government, to establish a Ghana visa centre in Beijing to facilitate visa acquisition for the Chinese outbound travelers.

She said Ghana was poised to sustain this marketing effort in the Asian tourism market.

Mrs Ofosu-Adjare said as part of the ministry’s effort at exposing the creative arts industry practitioners to international trade in goods and services, an invitation was extended to the creative art industry by the Ministry to participate in this year’s COTTM Fair.

She said Ghana’s delegation was made up of directors from the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Creative Arts, officials from the Ghana Tourism Authority, Forestry Commission, Ghana Tourist Development Company, Jet Away Travels, Apstar Tours, Joy Industries Limited and Land Tours.

Ghana’s Apstar Tours won an award in the category of product innovation at the China Outbound Tourism Awards.

COTTM is regarded as the industry’s most important platform and remains the only business-to-business event that focuses purely on the burgeoning Chinese outbound market. It was attended by over 5000 Chinese trade buyers from the leading outbound tour operators and travel agents.