A total of fifty events have so far been endorsed for the upcoming ‘December in GH’, Chief Executive Officer of GTA, Mr. Akwasi Agyeman has revealed.
According to him, out of 83 event proposals received by the “Beyond the Return” Secretariat, 50 have been officially endorsed.
He, however, said this does not mean that the other 32 would not have the events organised, but only that the ‘Beyond the Return’ stamp would not be on it.
“All the 50 endorsed events have been formally informed, and currently we are finalising the process for publication. We are also still receiving events and we welcome an event idea or initiative, even though we have shut the door for proposals,” he stated.
Mr. Agyeman made this known at a stakeholder’s engagement to discuss the preparedness towards the activities and to look at areas of collaboration and cooperation of the different organisations.
According to him, since the introduction of the events in 2019, it had become central to the concept of ‘Beyond the Return’, and the tourism industry as a whole.
He said the call for proposals was opened somewhere in July after which those received were submitted to the steering committee and the sub-committee for review.
The committee reviewed the events looking at the preparedness of event organisers, and its alignment with the whole concept of the ‘Beyond the Return’ and the ‘December in GH’ events.
The GTA CEO noted that the committee ensured that some of the events would happen across the country based on feedback from previous events, which showed Accra dominated the events.
He mentioned that the Authority was hoping to set up a welcome booth at the airport to allow people to scan the ‘Beyond the Return’ bar code and have the events and venues.
Mr. Agyeman appealed to event organisers to provide the prices of their events as well as all protocols involved to the Secretariat, and ensure to maintain standards in their operations during the events, to attract more tourists to boost the country’s tourist receipts.