The Chief Executive Officer of GTDC, Professor Kobby Mensah, unveiled the products at the Head Office of the GTDC in Accra on Tuesday, where the company’s digital transformation agenda was also showcased.

Present at the event were the Board Chairman of GTDC, Benjamin Ohene-Ayeh; the Deputy CEO of the Ghana Tourism Authority, Gilbert Abeiku Aggrey, and the Executive Director of the Creative Arts Agency, Gideon Aryeequaye, among others.

The new products and services included a Ghana Tourism Marketplace (GTM), a digital platform developed to connect tourism and hospitality vendors across the country in a centralised marketplace; Ghana Tourism Investment Platform (GTIP), a portal that provides data and profile on investable tourism sites across the country; Fleet Pool Management Service (FPMS), a transport management platform to provide safe, reliable and efficient transportation services within the tourism sector; Accra By Night, a nightlife tourism experience, offering visitors a unique night tour of the capital on an open-top double decker bus in alignment with the 24-hour economy vision.

The rest were the Big Tree Tourist Site and the Assin Manso Slave River Site; Ghana Tourism Calendar, a digital event discovery and ticketing platform which allows users to discover concerts, festivals, nightlife events, among others.

Repositioning GTDC

Prof. Mensah said the new platforms and services formed part of GTDC’s repositioning under the company’s strategy, which placed technology and sustainability at the centre of tourism development.

“We have about 120 plus events organised for the first quarter of the year. When we talk about data, we mean business.

We mean a very clear live data to let people know what is happening in the country,” he said.

Prof. Mensah explained that the digital systems were designed to track tourism activity in real time, with the goal of providing daily updates to the presidency on revenue and visitor numbers.

“Our goal is when we can tell the President the amount that has come into the sector. People are consuming tourism from the marketplace; that’s the vision,” he said.

Focus

The CEO further said that a major focus of GTDC was to drive domestic tourism, which he described as the sector’s “shock absorber” against global shocks such as COVID-19.

He said that while festivals and cultural events had driven some domestic participation, efforts remained uncoordinated and limited to selected areas.

Prof. Mensah, therefore, called for a shift in public perception about tourism, saying the sector had often been “demonised” by some citizens.

“If you say you work in a hotel, that’s a red flag for somebody to be married. If you say you’re on holiday, it’s about you having money.

We have kind of demonised the sector, so, we have to de-demonise it,” he said.

Also, Prof. Mensah said tourism should be viewed as a tool for healing and rejuvenation, not just leisure for the wealthy.

“Tourism is healing. Tourism is not because you have enough money.

t’s because sometimes you have to actually wind down,” he said.

Prof. Mensah further said that the company was finalising work on Tourism Entrepreneurship Hub, a platform to train and upskill citizens seeking to establish businesses in the tourism value chain.

He said the hub would provide access to experts and advisory services to support enterprise development in the sector.