COMING UP!!>>Episode #62 (Season 3, Ep.18): Afri-Tourism (3): Towards Tourism Police?

Episode #62 (Season 3, Ep.18):

Afri-Tourism (3): Towards Tourism Police?

Back on 9 September, 2014, our first focus on Afri-Tourism was powerful and deliberate: we had a definition for our listeners on what defines Afri-Tourism. We defined it as “the witting attempt by Africans to purchase African products while visiting African countries.”

This definition was not plucked out of the blue, but based on a deliberate process of having had four tourism-related shows from which we drew inspiration for a definition. Again, to remind listeners:

• Ghana’s Forestry Sector & Eco-Tourism on 29 July, 2014
• Africa’s Aviation sector on 19 August, 2014
• Ghana’s Hotel Industry on 26 August, 2014
• Afri-Tourism on 9 September, 2014
• The Hotel Industry in Ghana & Africa (2); and a Chat with Miss Tourism 2013 on 30 September, 2014

The term “Afri-Tourism” has become entrenched in AIF’s history on account of the first-ever High-Level Forum on Regional Development in West Africa, which was sponsored by WACSI. At the forum, Kofi Akpabli made a presentation entitled “Towards Afri-Tourism: Making Ghana a viable Tourist Destination” in which he spoke of a kind of sub-regional tourism. Akpabli further spoke of regional tourism blocs, wondering whether West Africa is competing or actually complementing – as done in East Africa.

In 2015, we had a second show on AfriTourism, in which we brought Kofi Akpabli; Professor Boakye; and Aisha Boakye-Yiadom -- three familiar faces to AIF— who know their tourism inside out, and helped us navigate another conversation on it from a sub-regional; national; and continental perspective.

But 2015 was different for another reason as it would be the year when the UN World Tourism Organisation would hold a conference on Branding Africa. It would be there the host would meet the founder of #TheAfricaTheMediaNeverShowsYou – 17-yr-old Rachel Emefa Markham, who says she will follow the footsteps of her grandfather-journalist’s career.

In this third show on AfriTourism, and the first for 2016, we are happy to be interviewing the Founder of the Tourism Organisation on Safety and Security (TOSS), which was re-launched in November 2015.

Even if we were to momentarily forget the collapse of the Bonsu bridge in 2015 that was passed off as “an act of God”, one cannot forget the increasing insecurity that terrorist attacks in the Sahel have caused, and its consequent and adverse backward and forward linkages on the tourism sector.

Now, more than ever, a conversation on the critical role of safety and its bedfellow – security – is needed. Could “tourism police” be an answer?

                                                                

Call us on the following numbers

+233(0)289.000.931

Join us if you can at 2.05pm on 17 February, 2015.

Guiding questions

·       Was the re-launch of TOSS necessitated by initial apathy of then-Tourism Board to focus areas of TOSS?

·       “Tourism Police” appears to be a major focus of TOSS. Why a focus on police?

·       How does one reconcile safety and security with tourism?

·       How important is a liberalization of Africa’s airlines important for the tourism industry?

·       What is the objective of the upcoming conference in May?

·      

 Guest in the studio:

Ø  Kwame Twum Ampofo, Founder/Director of Special Duties, Tourism Safety & Security Initiative(TOSS)

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more details will be available soon on www.africainfocusradioshow.org ; africainfocusshow.blogspot.com. Follow the conversations on #AfricainFocus on twitter: http://www.twitter.com/africainfocus14. Tweet Emmanuel ahead of time on www.twitter.com/ekbensah, using #africainfocus .

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