GIV E TAX RELIEFS TO PROMOTERS OF TOURISM (PAGE 40)

THE Manageress of the Afrikiko Water Front Resort at Akosombo, Mrs Dorothy Opare, has called on the government to give tax reliefs to individuals and businesses that risk in promoting the tourism industry in rural areas endowed with tourism potentials.
She stated that incentives such as easy access to funds and other necessary support would entice players in the industry to move to rural areas to set up facilities to create employment for the rural people.
Such a move, she said, would minimise the rural-urban migration and child labour.
Mrs Opare was speaking in an interview in reaction to Daily Graphic report that some children aged between eight and 12 were engaged in a risky business of ferrying tourists across the Volta River in canoes that were not equipped with safety gadgets.
That was when some executive members of the Ghana Tourism Board from Koforidua embarked on a fact-finding mission to some of the Water Front hotels along the Volta River at Akosombo and Atimpoku to solicit their views on the use of unequipped canoes by the children.
Mrs Opare, who is also the proprietress of Afrikiko restaurant and the Coco Beach Hotel, both in Accra, said it was time the government paid serious attention to tourism promotion in the rural areas as part of efforts to enhance the industry to create jobs for the people.
According to her, although many of the youth in rural areas were determined to work, the non-existence of jobs in those areas had compelled a lot of them to move to the urban centres, where they found no jobs.
“If there are no jobs for these energetic youth in the rural areas, it is common to find them engaged in risky businesses such as using children to fish during the day and night at their peril”, Mrs Opare said.
She noted that over the past years, the government’s focus on promoting the tourism industry had centred so much on urban areas, where tourists no longer considered attractive.
Mrs Opare said unlike the big cities, Akosombo and its environs were endowed with a number of tourist sites, which had over the years made the place the most attractive place in the country.
She mentioned the serene and quiet atmosphere surrounding the mountainous area covered by rich green vegetation, the Volta Lake, the Akosombo Dam, the Adomi Bridge, the Dodi Island, the Willi, Boti and Akyaa Falls as well as the Paradise Mountains located not far away from Akosombo as some of the tourist attractions.
“These tourism sites, which cannot be found in any of the big cities in the country, including the capital, Accra, are quiet unique in nature, hence their ability to attract most of the tourists to Akosombo and its environs”, she noted.
“As a country, I think we do not know how to make money out of the tourism industry as countless tourists, instead of spending their money rather takes away more money out of the country”, Mrs Opare said, adding “this is because we create nothing to attract them to spend the money”.