‘Time to increase marketing potential of cultural heritage’ as GIPC launches 3rd edition of Taste of Ghana
Ghana needs to create the opportunity and tap more into its culture in a bid to increase its marketing potential and rake in more foreign exchange, the CEO of Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC), Yofi Grant has suggested.
Speaking at the third edition launch of the Taste of Ghana event which is slated for 23 and 24 December, Mr. Grant said “We actually support the Ministry of Tourism to carry out because it all adds to the attractiveness of your country, when your country has no culture, people come in but they don’t see, but when there is culture, when they come they want to see, a lot of sales that you make of a country is a culture that is visual -when you check most people know America because of Micheal Jackson, and so we also need to create the opportunity where we will showcase our culture .
With the Taste of Ghana, we are going to have a bit of all these things like the previous ones where you saw all the cultural dances being performed and these are visual images that sell the country.”
Further he explained that given the investible opportunities that are bestowed in the various regions, there was the need to market it more, “when you look at it, Ghana itself is resource rich and not every part of the country has developed as the urban areas/cities, but when you travel around the country you see real opportunities, talents and we also see how we can work with them and draw them in and also formalize a lot of these such that they are salable aspects of our country, that’s what the regional sensitization tour is all about.
Also to sensitise the regional authorities that they do have potential that can be exploited for economic growth, so we are going around.”
Deputy Minister of Tourism,Arts and Culture Mark Okraku Mantey indicated that the Taste of Ghana will showcase everything Ghanaian and indigenous geared to cement the cultural heritage of the country.
“It is about time we got a platform to bring everything Ghanaian at one place so people can experience within and without what we have, so this concept came up three years ago from GIPC that because they are into selling Ghana they want to do this at one place so that MoTAC and other partners can come together and make this happen, we want to make this the best out of the three.”
The CEO of Ghana Tourism Authority, Akwasi Agyeman stated that GTA was fully behind the event and urged all rank and file in the country to patronize it.
Taste of Ghana 3.0 is a festival to celebrate Ghana’s unique culture. It is expected to feature various indigenous cultural elements (music, poetry, theatrical performances, food, clothing, etc.), with an emphasis on the use of Ghanaian languages to create a memorable experience for patrons.
