Having led over 20 Ghanaian tour operators to the 2022 Africa’s Travel Indaba (ATI 2022), President of the Tour Operators Union of Ghana (TOUGHA), Mrs. Alisa Osei-Asamoah has stressed her satisfaction at the platform the event provided to create business linkages.
TOUGHA members took part in key engagements such as the CEOs Breakfast Meeting, South Africa Airways Breakfast Meeting, speeding marketing and networking sessions and myriad meetings with exhibitors and buyers during the May 2-5 event in Durban.
For Mrs. Osei-Asamoah, the avenue to meet, interact and transact business at the nascent stage of tourism’s recovery is commendable.
In an interview with VoyagesAfriq, she said that: “As tour operators, our primary concern is to package attractions and experiences and sell to clients. Sometimes it’s difficult getting direct access to the people who are responsible for the products and services but what we saw at Indaba was a unique chance for us to directly meet those in charge for us to do good business and that is something we were very happy about and applaud.”
She added that ATI2022 gave the tourism industry confidence that all hope is not lost in its progressive path to recovery.
Mrs. Osei-Asamoah maintained, “It is amazing what South African Tourism has been able to achieve with this event with all the things the host province, KwaZulu-Natal had to endure prior to the show. It demonstrates their tenacity of purpose to push the travel agenda and we are grateful to have been given the opportunity to be part of it.
The President insisted that TOUGHA would work to consolidate their partnership with South African Tourism to bring more visitors to the destination while calling on other countries to emulate the country’s example.
“I believe South Africa has set the benchmark for other African countries to follow in quickly reviving their tourism and we look forward to attending such events across the continent. I know it may not be easy, but there are a lot of cues that can be gleaned from South Africa’ leadership role in Africa’s tourism recovery journey,” she asserted.
By: Samuel Obeng Appah
