Information Minister, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, has charged Ghanaian media houses to employ innovative programmes that will promote and market the newly refurbished tourist centres in the country.

He believes this will attract many more Ghanaians and people from all over the world.

According to him, this has become necessary, particularly as the COVID-19 pandemic negatively impacted patronage of our tourist centres and revenues that accrue to the state from the sector due to restrictions on mobility.

“To our colleagues in the media, our charge to you is that you develop innovative programmes that attracts thousands of people, not just to this site, for example, the National Museum that was just refurbished and opened and the many other tourist sites that we are investing in.

“We charge you to develop innovative programmes that bring a lot of Ghanaians and people from all over the world to visit these sites, and together, we will be able to bring the Ghanaian economy back to where we want it to be,” he said.

The Minister spoke on Tuesday at a sod-cutting event to commence rehabilitation and modernisation works on the Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park (KNMP).

In 2019, Ghana’s tourism sector generated 3.3 billion in revenue to the state with a total of 1.1 million tourist arrivals.

However, the advent of the pandemic sharply depressed the sector declining arrivals in 2021 by 88.3 percent.

This Minister Oppong Nkrumah said to recover the sector and set it back to its pre-pandemic levels; the media must play a critical role in developing innovative programmes that will drive domestic tourism and attract foreign nationals to visit our tourist sites.