People & Lifestyle
Guest Blog: Beyond The Year Of Return… Eco-Tourism, Eco-Adventure As Alternative Income Earner For The Tourism Industry
December 2019 was a busy month in Ghana as it saw the Africa-Americans from the diaspora and other foreign nationals troop into Ghana to celebrate the festive month of December in Ghana, to commemorate the Year of Return; a historical event to mark 400 years of slavery after the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in James town, Virginia in 1961.
This without doubt is a boost for Ghana’s tourism sector and a strong foundation for our cultural, heritage and Pan-African celebrations. According to information from Government of Ghana sources, the celebration saw over 750,000 individuals, generating about $1.9 billion in revenue. 
The success of the Year of Return has led to the government’s new initiative dubbed, “Beyond the Year of Return”. A 10-year long term project expected to further boost the tourism sector and increase its tourism arrivals. But how does this help grow Ghana’s historic, culture, heritage, and Pan-Africanism footprints? Especially, with all the great potentials in Eco-adventure tourism which ought to be given the needed attention as a complement to revenue generation, and socio-economic growth.
The success story of the Year of Return 2019, gives us the opportunity to promote and market other tourism potentials of the country of which Eco-tourism and Eco-Adventure plays a greater role.
Eco-tourism is an effective way to safeguard a country’s resources while promoting socio-economic development and empowerment of local communities. For instance, Mole National Park, Kakum National Park, Shai resource reserves and Ankasa Resource Reserve, are some of the developed parks with facilities in the country.
Also, there is a growing demand for eco-adventure activities such as Hiking, tent camping, rock climbing, exploring, canoeing, kayaking and cycling especially among the youths seeking an alternative travel activities and lifestyle from the usual with great health and self-development.
Among the many benefits, these activities push us to our physical and mental limits, enhances our fear management skills, work different muscles, increase our balances, gain a sense of humility and most importantly boost our self-confidence.
To help project Ghana Beyond the Year of Return, Touch Effects Limited, a Travel and Lifestyle, Events and Projects Management company has designed its flagship projects- TRAVEL GHANA and WILD WILD GH, to develop Ghana through tourism. Our project is an exploratory, lifestyle, and reality projects intended to imbue, educate and encourage the Ghanaian public the need to travel and appreciate our unique natural landscape, with the aim of pushing domestic tourism to another level through targeted exploration activities such as: eco-documentaries, reality events/programs, and blogging. With a strong youthful team made up of diverse expertise, we are strategically positioning our start-up as the engine of the tourism industry in Ghana, and the preferred choice within the West African sub region both domestically and internationally. Our approach, we believe will further boost Ghana’s domestic tourism exposure on the local and international markets.
Currently, the team is working on its TRAVEL GHANA APP which is 50% done. This app when launched, will see a tremendous change in the digital age of tourism in Ghana and the West African Sub-Region.
It is our hope and believe that, the Ministry of Tourism and the Ghana Tourism Authority will use BEYOND THE YEAR OF RETURN, to create, market, and maximize the other tourism opportunities in the country. We will be glad to collaborate and partner the Ministry on our projects in other to project the important areas we have mentioned above.
By:
DELALI KOTOKA
Executive Director
Touch Effects Limited
touch.effects2@gmail.com
delali.xavier@gmail.com
0240544872