By Akosua Frema Frempong
The Ghana Tourist Development Company Limited, an agency of the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture has organized a capacity-building programme in Kumasi for tour drivers in the Ashanti Region. These drivers are considered the front liners whose roles in promoting tourism have been identified.
Ghana Tourist Development Company Limited, an agency of the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture is responsible for promoting and mobilizing resources for investment in tourism undertakings and services. It is also to provide financial and technical assistance for small businesses in the tourism industry and improve the efficiency and level of their services.
Over the years, the Ghana Tourist Development Company focused on building the capacities of hotel and restaurant staff, tour guides and other key players in the industry for growth and development. However, in recent times, the Company has seen the need to focus its attention towards especially tour drivers whose roles in promoting tourism have been identified. These drivers are considered the front liners who meet tourists when they arrive in the country. It is in this regard, that capacity-building programmes have been designed to enhance their efficiency.
Ghana Tourist Development Company has targeted to train three thousand tour drivers by the close of this year. At one such programme in Kumasi, more than 50 transport service providers drawn from the various transport unions in the Ashanti Region availed themselves of the capacity training. They included taxis, uber, and bolt divers. At a brief ceremony to open the training, Deputy Minister of Tourism, Arts and Culture, Mr Mark Okraku- Mantey emphasized the need to upgrade the competencies of drivers, who by their profession, are better placed to market Ghana’s tourism potential.
‘’The taxi or the transport community is very important to the tourism industry, and we need to acquaint them with some degree of capacity. That is why we are here today to reinforce what you already have so that we can compete globally. We are not the only people who have discovered tourism as a money-making venture, other countries are also closing the gaps and we must be ready to compete because we are relatively new in the space, others have learned and so if we are all ready to compete and beat them you must also up your game in terms of all the parties of stakeholders in the value chain of the ecosystem. So today, people of the transport community let’s take this exercise seriously, let’s make the best out of this in the forthcoming year, we have plans to do more for this community because we believe that every individual in the value chain of the ecosystem needs to align with the vision of the president’s to make tourism a number contributor to the country’s GDP, and we all have roles to play,’’ he disclosed.
A Technical Advisor to the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture, Professor Gabriel Eshun encouraged drivers to be abreast of the tourist sites in the country and be ready to sell them to visitors who arrive in the country. A participant, Peter Owusu shared his views about the training programme.
‘’We shall a lot of benefits from this training which will help us to expand our business. I once benefitted from this training in the ’90s organised by Ghana Tourist Board which was called driver tour guide, but it was sustained. I pray this time around this training will be sustained,’’ he noted.
