Ghana’s tourism in perspective: historical trends, and the dynamics of philosophical orientation and industry performance.

Abstract

From the cottage industry that it was in colonial times, Ghana’s tourism has grown to become the country’s fourth highest foreign exchange earner, generating $2billion and employing about 350000 people annually. Though there have been many studies on the sector, those that focus on the country’s tourism growth trajectory and its inherent patterns are few and far between. But it is imperative to understand what type of developments have occurred, how this growth has evolved, and, perhaps, most importantly, the extent to which these changes have reflected different philosophical leanings of successive governments. To this end, the paper, using secondary data employs a fusion of Tourism Area Lifecycle Curve with a Political Economy approach to analyse existing demand and supply trends over the 1985-2014 period. The results suggest that the country’s tourism has evolved through 5 distinct stages so far, namely, the colonial era, early expansion, the first decline, renaissance and the current slowed growth. Each of these stages is marked by a unique combination of market indicators and governmentality. The findings suggest the possible existence of an association between government’s philosophical orientation (and by extension, intervention) and sector performance. It found, for example that tourism experienced higher growth in the
era where the government adopted a hybrid philosophical approach which saw government being directly involved in product creation aside its regulatory and facilitative functions. It is recommended that the first step towards reviving the ailing fortunes of the tourism sector is to change the philosophical paradigm from the present laissez fairist approach towards the hybrid philosophical paradigm which encourages government to combine its entrepreneurial, facilitative and regulatory roles.