The greatest desire of any tourist/holiday maker is to have fun and
relaxation in a safe place away from home. To that end almost all tourism
destinations present themselves as idyllic places where the patron can feel
relaxed and safe. Thus the tourism
attraction would be the last place a person would expect to be exposed to harm
. That is why this week has been a
rather bad one for tourism. First it was
the deadly terrorist attack in Sousse, Tunisia, then, our own Bunso Canopy Walkway also gave way.
The first of them was a security issue while the incident in Ghana centred on
safety. Either way, they each have the potential to hurt the tourist trade in
their respective countries.
Research
has shown there is a very strong positive relationship between safety/security
and the fortunes of tourism. Tourism
literally thrives on safety and security.
For
example, the World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) indicates that international tourist arrivals in its
Middle East Region (including Egypt and Tunisia) declined by 8.4 percent to 54.8 million in
2011 – a year after the Arab
Spring. Yet, in 2010 the previous year, arrivals to the region had grown by nearly 15.
The effect is even more graphic when the figures for the two countries are
isolated from the rest. Experts generally believe that the 2010 revolts caused
at least a
30-40% decline in demand for the two
countries in subsequent years. In fact, in Tunisia, tourism arrivals dropped
by a third in 2011 and the associated financial losses can only be imagined. The
same can be said of the effect of the 9/11 attacks on the New York tourism
industry which was estimated to lose some 1-2 billion dollars in business in
associated economic activities.
An
even more ominous threat to global tourism
is that posed by terrorism. The stark reality is that a pattern is slowly taking shape in which
tourism facilities are increasingly becoming targets for terrorist attacks. Attacks from England, Bali, Indonesia, France,
Jordan, Egypt, Kenya, Peru, The Philippines, and Mexico and, more recently,
Tunisia have shown this trend. This year
alone Tunisia has witnessed two such horrific incidents, just three months apart from each other - one
at a museum and the more recent one at a
popular tourist beach.
It therefore goes without saying that
countries that wish to gain from tourism must consciously make efforts to
protect the trade. For a country that is
so heavily reliant on international visitors, Ghana cannot afford to be having
such avoidable safety oversights or
security breaches at its
attractions. It is against this backdrop
that we
should take what happened in Bunso as seriously as we can and also
institute structures that can avoid a terrorist attack on our tourism
facilities.
It
is good to read that the Ghana Tourism Authority is in the process of developing
a Legislative Instrument that will empower them to enforce safety and security at our attraction
sites.
This
is because in truth, Bunso is not the only unsafe and insecure
attraction in the country. In fact save
for a few arrangements for police presence on crowded days, our attraction
facilities hardly have any security cover.
Neither are there any strong safety measures that can protect patrons
from unintended harm.
Moving
forward the Ministry of Tourism as a policy formulator must initiate processes
towards the crafting of a tourism safety
and security policy. Such a
policy would definitely have to address pertinent questions such as: How safe should
our attractions/facilities ? What are the likely sources of harm/threat
(unintended or intentional)
·
What
warning systems can we put in place to
monitor and react to such threats?
·
Who
manages these systems and how will they be funded?
·
What
systems can we institute to ensure these facilities comply with prescribed safety measures?
·
Who
are the key stakeholders and what roles do they play?
·
How
often must equipment at attraction sites be maintained or changed?
·
What
is the carrying capacity of our tourist facilities, how are they determined and
who enforces adherence to them?
·
How
best can the tourism sector and the security apparatus collaborate to
provide safety/security (especially from
terrorism)
Bunso
must serve as the wake-up call for us as a destination to create security structures and systems for all tourism attractions in Ghana.
by
Prof.
Kwaku Boakye
The writer is
the Managing Researcher at the Tourism Research and
Advocacy Centre- a tourism think tank based in Cape Coast.
Email:
tourism.advocate@yahoo.com
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