Ghana has built a powerful international tourism identity around heritage, culture and the return of the African diaspora. But Kobby Mensah, CEO of the Ghana Tourism Development Company (GTDC), argues that the country’s positioning needs to become much broader.
In this interview, he discusses Ghana’s next chapter, the need to connect tourism with investment and economic development, and the digital infrastructure being developed to put the country’s tourism offer at people’s fingertips.
Kobby, you have moved from academia and marketing into leading the Ghana Tourism Development Company. What has this transition taught you about the difference between studying how places are positioned and actually having to shape their development?
One of the most revealing moments in my academic and practitioner life came when I received my appointment letter and immediately started meeting industry players in tourism. I first met the outgoing CEO of my agency, who made a profound comment in what seemed to be an overwhelming situation for him: “I believe you being a professor you will be able to change the fortunes of this agency.”
At the time, the brief report he offered me was grim, to say the least, and very discouraging. The company lacked revenue handles, meaning products and services that generate revenue. It lacked systems to support operations, such as attendance, productivity, workflow tracking and records. There were no standard operating procedures, no strategic plan to guide an enterprise-wide vision, and no clear departmental direction.
To put it bluntly, it was a completely hopeless case, to the point that I asked myself whether it was a venture I wanted to undertake. But I also assured myself that it was a situation I could rescue and a challenge I was prepared to undertake.
I had taught Tourism Marketing for more than ten years, and as a chartered marketer, product development, innovation and marketing come naturally to me. I also knew that my industry experience, having worked as a marketing officer of a tourism company at the beginning of my career, together with my network of professionals and academics across diverse fields, could come in handy in turning GTDC around.
My academic background underpinned my confidence that resetting GTDC was a doable task. I knew from day one the frameworks I could deploy to turn around an almost-dead agency.
For me, the GTDC reset was always going to be based on capacity building, process engineering and systems development, underpinned by innovation and digitalisation.
Ghana has built considerable international recognition through initiatives such as the Year of Return and Beyond the Return. How do you think Ghana should evolve its positioning now, so that it reflects where the country is heading rather than relying mainly on the narratives that have worked in the past?
It is important to note, especially because most people do not seem to remember or are oblivious to the earlier initiatives, that the Year of Return and the subsequent Beyond the Return were successful partly because of Ghana’s heritage tourism initiatives, Panafest and Emancipation, which were curated and heavily participated in during the 1990s, when tourism was not yet on the policy radar of most African countries.
The first Panafest and Emancipation celebrations were held in 1992. This shows that Ghana’s positioning as the motherland for homecoming, and for the return of the African diaspora to the homeland, did not begin with the highly successful global marketing campaign of 2019.
Before that, Ghana had hosted three major Pan-African icons, W.E.B. Du Bois, George Padmore and Kwame Nkrumah, and continues to host their remains.
In modern terms, Panafest and Emancipation can therefore be considered the fulcrum of Ghana’s destination branding, with Ghana positioned as a heritage destination for historic Africans.
But Ghana is certainly beyond that.
What actually brought Europeans to Ghana in the first place, and the subsequent unfortunate development of slavery and colonisation, is an untold and fascinating story of Ghana that many people have not heard. The fact that the country is at the centre of the world, with an abundance of gold and other natural resources, has a lot to offer in terms of geotourism and ecotourism.
Lake Bosomtwe in the Ashanti Region, for example, was created by a meteorite some 1.5 million years ago and is used for the study of Mars. This is a hidden gem in Ghana’s tourism storytelling.
This means tourism must connect widely with diverse areas of expertise, especially history, earth science and African studies, rather than relying only on tourism specialists. If we broaden the appeal and present an authentic Ghanaian story beyond slavery and culture, important as those stories are, we can create a much richer proposition.
You have spoken about tourism as part of Ghana’s wider economic development agenda. Where do you see the greatest opportunity to connect Ghana’s tourism proposition with its positioning for investment, talent, innovation and broader economic development?
As mentioned above, we must connect widely beyond what we know as “pure tourism”, which for many Ghanaian industry players means heritage and culture.
We have huge potential in geotourism, ecotourism and educational tours. Ghana can position itself around its geographical location, its status as the first country in sub-Saharan Africa to gain independence, and its consolidated democracy.
That democracy has produced peace and good neighbourliness as part of its dividend. This should help attract leisure tourists and MICE business if we have the corresponding infrastructure.
Unfortunately, those many years of democracy are not yet yielding as much from that direction as they could.
GTDC is currently putting considerable emphasis on investment mobilisation, digital platforms and better use of data. How might these tools change the way Ghana understands and communicates its proposition to international investors, visitors and other audiences?
As I mentioned earlier, GTDC lacked systems, processes and human capacity, among other things, when I assumed office. How can an entity mandated to attract investment lack basic systems, and how does that impact its image? Certainly, it will not be taken seriously as an entity with a task as strategic as investment solicitation.
So it was immediately clear to me that to attract investors, we should first demonstrate capacity. That could be done quickly through institutional brand building, digital systems and innovative product design.
I knew from the beginning that the GTDC brand did not exist, although the entity did. My first goal was therefore to build the brand through developing innovative products and digital systems to serve as repositories and “shop floors” for those looking for tourism products and services, including investment portfolios.
This led to the development of Accra By Night, which was a novelty designed to excite both the domestic and international market about experiencing Ghana after dark. It was a clear departure from traditional tour packages.
Accra By Night was also a psychological statement, leveraging Ghana’s democratic dividend as a peaceful country and positioning it distinctly from other African destinations that, despite being leading destinations, occasionally experience sociopolitical disturbances.
We also developed the Ghana Tourism Marketplace (GTM), the Ghana Tourism Investment Platform (GTiP) and the Ghana Tourism Events Calendar (GTEC) as umbrella shop floors where consumers, the trade and investors can find tourism products, services and investment opportunities.
With these platforms, we can also deploy digital marketing strategies, including search engine optimisation and marketing, social media marketing and influencer marketing, to push Ghana tourism into the global marketplace while making it easier for the domestic market to access tourism products and services.
I have always held the view that, when I took office, Ghana did not technically have a tourism market. Domestically, most Ghanaians could not name even three tourism brands in tour operations, car rentals or theatre companies, although the same people could easily name more than three banking, telecommunications or media brands.
This is because tourism providers have not been sufficiently visible, for many reasons.
The private sector has existed and offered diverse products and services for close to 30 years since the return to democracy in 1992, but it has been fragmented.
There was no single umbrella shop to serve as a “go-to” place for those looking for Ghana tourism. Hence my aim to develop that single window.
Where do you see the biggest gap today between the Ghana that exists and the Ghana that is understood internationally?
Ghana is more than the slave story, though that is important and central to our tourism. Ghana is also more than culture.
Ghana is the centre of the world, both literally and figuratively. It is geographically located on the Equator, latitude 0.00 and the Meridian, longitude 0.00. with the line just outside the shores of Ghana, and the Meridian runs through Tema, one of Ghana’s cities.
Ghana is also the epicentre of Pan-Africanism and the African renaissance. It is home to historic Africans.
Looking across Africa and beyond, which places do you think are doing particularly interesting work in positioning themselves for investment, talent or visitors?
Currently, you can talk about Burkina Faso and Benin. These countries are absolutely flying, investing heavily in infrastructure as a backbone to tourism development. They are certainly worth paying attention to.
If you look five to ten years ahead, what would you like Ghana to be known for internationally that it is not yet sufficiently known for today?
Our ambition at GTDC is to deliver sustainable tourism underpinned by innovation and digitalisation. I want to see a destination that is heavily online and at your fingertips with just a click. This will help me promote all 16 regions of the country, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, in line with my President’s Black Star Experience vision.
Indeed, Ghana is heritage tourism. Ghana is culture. But Ghana is also geotourism and ecotourism, as well as leisure and MICE.
Thank you, Kobby
Kobby Mensah is a tourism marketing academic and practitioner and the CEO of the Ghana Tourism Development Company (GTDC). His work at GTDC focuses on institutional transformation, tourism investment, digitalisation, product development and the broader positioning of Ghana as a tourism destination.
This interview is part of The Place Brand Observer’s Who’s Who of Place Impact Makers series, highlighting practitioners and leaders shaping how places are positioned, experienced and understood.
