Ghanaians urged to make celebration of PANAFEST a success

Cape Coast, June 20, GNA - Rabbi Kohain Nathanyah Halevi, Executive Secretary of the Pan-African Historical Theatre Festival (PANAFEST) Foundation, on Wednesday called on Ghanaians especially, hoteliers, tour operators and taxi drivers, to endeavour to exhibit the best "Ghanaian hospitality", to make the celebration of this year's PANAFEST a success. More than 1,200 visitors are expected to flock the country for this year's PANAFEST/Emancipation Day and the 'Joseph Project' celebration, which begins on July 22.

Rabbi Halevi stressed that it was imperative to be nice to all visitors, particularly those who would be visiting the country for the first time for the festival and that there was the need to make them comfortable, adding, "first impressions count a lot". The Executive-Secretary, who made the call at a stakeholders meeting at Cape Coast to discuss ways of making this year's celebration a success, gave the assurance that everything was being done to ensure that there were no power outages during the celebration. He said in line with this, the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) is being consulted and a standby generator would also be made available particularly at the trade expo grounds, where most of the evening performances would be held.

Most airlines had already been fully booked and that tourists from Brazil, North and South America, Canada, the Caribbean, Cuba, United Kingdom, Germany and Italy were expected in the country for the festival, he said.

He disclosed that in view of the large number of tourists expected, provision had been made for residents to create "tourist homes", by having some of the tourists lodge in their homes, since the hotels in the Central Region could not accommodate all of them. Rabbi Halevi, however, advised people who intended using their homes as such, to register with the Ghana Tourists Board and cautioned that it would be illegal to operate their homes as such without first registering with the Board.

He also urged all tour guides who would be receiving tourists, to register with the PANAFEST Secretariat, adding that the major source of funding for the Foundation was through payment of such registration fees and donations and sponsorship from individuals and organisations. On activities slated, he said a six-kilometre 'PANFEST walk' would be held on July 2 in Cape Coast to herald the celebration. The participants suggested the creation of a permanent PANAFEST village instead of the use of the Adisadel School Park for most of the programmes particularly the bazaar and trade expo. Other activities lined-up for the celebration include, a boat ride from the 'door of no return' at the Cape Coast Castle to the Elmina Castle dungeons, a durbar of chiefs, and an African scholars and activists conference on Pan- Africanism. 20 June 07