The Ministry of Tourism will soon come up with a Tourism bill to bring about the needed linkages between tourism legislation and other related laws and remove perceived bottlenecks in the industry, the Minister of Tourism, Mrs. Sabah Zita Okaikoi, has announced.

Although she did not say exactly when the bill was to be passed, she explained that when passed, it will ensure compatibility with modern tourism practices world-wide and promote competitiveness.

Mrs. Okaikoi announced this at the opening ceremony of the first International Tourism Investment forum in Accra yesterday. The forum which is being held on the theme, “Time to explore – The role of the investor in the Tourism sector”, is organized by the ministry of Tourism, in collaboration with the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC).
Its aim is to promote job creation and income-generating activity, as well as up-scale and increase tourist arrivals and promote public- private participation in the tourism sector.

Mrs. Okaikoi said the future prospects for the tourism industry in the country were promising, despite the challenges of inadequate funding that the sector was faced with.

She admitted that although there were many tourism opportunities available in the country, the sector needed to be effectively packaged to ensure that those opportunities were maximized effectively.

She expressed the hope that the forum would provide a platform for many to explore the untapped and diverse tourism potential that existed in the country.

The Minister of Information, Mr. John Tia Akologu, who stood in for the President, said the government would identify the right mechanisms needed to market the tourism sector to enable the transfer of resources to the poor. He said the government acknowledged the significant role the sector could play in the realization of the “better Ghana” agenda.

Source: Daily Graphic