‘Year Of Return’ Impact Has Been High – Tourism Minister

The Minister of Tourism, Arts and Culture, Barbara Oteng Gyasi, has described the ‘Year of Return’ initiative introduced by the government of Ghana as beneficial.

According to her, the increased number of travellers in Ghana has positively impacted private sector industries such as airlines, hotels, tour operators, restaurants, arts and crafts dealers among others.

She made this known at a Press Meeting at the Ministry of Information on Thursday, December 19, 2019 in Accra.

“The ‘Year of Return’ initiative revolutionised Ghana’s tourism sector and has projected the country significantly,” she said, adding that “the Cable News Network (CNN) travel news report for 2019 placed Ghana as the fourth best destination to visit out of 19 countries.

“The country recorded a remarkable increase of 237,088 airport travels as of the third quarter of 2019, representing a 45 per cent increase over the previous year,” she stated.

Mrs. Oteng-Gyasi added, “These successes chalked calls for putting sustainability measures in place to build on the sector’s achievements to continue to attract tourists and investments into Ghana. The event has been covered domestically and internationally over 1,000 times by television, print, radio, and online media sources. Key international outlets that have featured Ghana include CNN, BBC, AL-JAZEERA, SABC, Essence Magazine, Ebony Magazine, etc.”

About the Year of Return

The “Year of Return, Ghana 2019” is a major landmark spiritual and birth-right journey inviting the Global African family, home and abroad, to mark 400 years of the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in Jamestown, Virginia.

The arrival of enslaved Africans marked a sordid and sad period when our kith and kin were forcefully taken away from Africa into years of deprivation, humiliation and torture.

While August 2019 marks 400 years since enslaved Africans arrived in the United States, “The Year of Return, Ghana 2019” celebrates the cumulative resilience of all the victims of the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade who were scattered and displaced through the world in North America, South America, the Caribbean, Europe and Asia.

So far, there have a been a litany of activities that have been held as part of the celebration – and there are a lot more to be held this December, as the programme reaches its climax.