‘Provide recreational centers at tourist site’

 The Director in-Charge of Monitoring and Evaluation of the Ghana Investment Pro­motion Centre (GIPC), Dr George Asafo Adjei has said that although the tourism sector is receiving some attention from government with the development of key tourism sites, alot more needs to be done to max­imise the benefits of the sector.

According to him, there was the need to develop tourism along the value chain, adding that “we need to link tourism development with all its accompaniments such as entertainment, food joints and other side attractions to sustain the interest of tourists who would flock into the country.

He said this in an interview with The Spectator on the sidelines of a day’s regional sensitisation work­shop organised by GIPC to create awareness on its mandate and service delivery at Techiman in the Bono East Region.

He indicated that it was not enough to just draw tourists into the country without the favourable conditions to sustain and generate their interest.

“Most tourists want something that would generate their interest rather than merely visiting tour­ism sites. We need to ensure that the 10 or 15 minutes a tourist will spend at tourism sites is something she or he will take away or re­member. There could be things like cultural displays performed by local people at these sites,” he empha­sised.

Among the objectives of the workshop was to share the insights of the region’s untapped economic potentials and opportunities among others.

Dr Asafo Adjei charged the Bono East Regional Coordinating Council to liaise with GIPC to develop a business plan to push for the re­gion’s development.

The Bono East Region, he noted must leverage its tourism potentials as well as agribusiness which the region abounds in to fast track the development of the area.

He also called for the improve­ment in infrastructure such as roads, hospitals and hotels which he said were very critical to attract investors into the new region.

The Bono East Regional Minister, Kwasi Adu Gyan on his part com­mended GIPC for extending their activities to the region and ex­pressed the hope this would go long way to speed up the implementa­tion of the area.

He explained that government believes that development begins from the Municipal and District As­semblies through implementation of local content and urged the partici­pants to make use of the knowledge acquired through the workshop.

 From Daniel Dzirasah, Techiman