The Ghana Tourism Authority (GTA) has stated that it will do everything possible to boost local tourism in the country despite the major setbacks the sector has been facing since the outbreak of COVID-19.

The Acting Public Affairs Director of GTA, Nelson Jones who made this known in an interview with Accra-based Citi FM explained that a better chance of thriving during these trying times is to focus on promoting tourism at the local level by engaging stakeholders on processes to adopt to make additional revenue.

“The kind of situation we find ourselves indicates that we need to intensify our domestic tourism to get the yield because the times are rough. If you travel to Asia, you will realize that their domestic tourism is the base of tourism. It fetches them a lot of money. They don’t think about international tourism, they rather focus on domestic tourism. So we are trying to intensify efforts, and we are also saying that we have to go virtual so we can boost domestic tourism.”

Meanwhile, the Ghana Hotels Association believes focusing on the hospitality sector will go a long way in boosting the tourism industry.

Where we still have the COVID-19 issue, certainly international visits to Ghana will reduce drastically as we are witnessing now. So then the next option is to look within. And over the years we’ve placed some premium on international travels and visits to the detriment of domestic tourism. This is the time to revive domestic tourism,” said the President of the Ghana Hotels Association, Dr Edward Ackah-Nyamike.