Mr Nino Miseo, General Manager of the La-Palm Royal Beach Hotel, on Thursday lauded government’s decision to convert the Ghana Tourist Board (GTB) to an Authority.

Speaking to the Ghana News Agency in Accra ahead of the launch of a three-year tourism marketing document by the Tourism Ministry to market the country, Mr Miseo, an authority in tourism said the decision was a demonstration of the importance the current administration placed on tourism promotion and development.

The conversion of the GTB to an Authority is to give it a wider responsibility not only to issue license, among others, but also to regularize tourism activities in the country.

Mr Miseo said tourism is like a big cake where every country is competing to have a bigger slice of it, adding that, this called for seriousness to be attached to the industry to be able to gain the best out of it.

He said, even though Ghana was blessed with so many tourist features, not much had been done over the years to develop and promote the industry to attract tourists into the Ghana.

He said efforts should be made to modernize the country’s historical monuments and cultural heritage as well as package them in a more attractive way and use them to market the country.

Mr Miseo, who has managed several world class hotels across the world, said the country’s embassies and consular offices across the world must be staffed with personnel who had skills in tourism management to enable them to market the country.

He said the World Tourism Day celebrations to be hosted by Ghana in September this year offered the country a golden opportunity to showcase her tourism features and potentials to the rest of the world.

He called on the media, especially television outlets in the country to produce documentaries about the rich tourism features of the country and showcase to the guests to complement efforts at marketing the industry to rest of the world.

Mr Miseo promised that the La-Palm Royal Beach Hotel would sponsor accommodation for some of the guests to the World Tourism Day celebrations as its contribution towards the event.

Source: GNA