Deputy Minister for Tourism, Arts and Culture, Mark Okraku-Mantey says selecting tourism ambassadors to promote Ghana is a thing of the past.

In an interview with Andy Dosty on Hitz FM’s Daybreak Hitz, the Deputy Minister stated that the mandate of selling Ghana to the world does not rest on the shoulders of a few individuals selected by the state.

According to him, it is better to put at the back of the minds of Ghanaians that promoting tourism in Ghana is a shared responsibility.

In 2017, the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture unveiled 30 celebrities to lead the promotion of the country’s culture and tourism locally and internationally. Cutting across various segments, they included musicians, actors, bloggers, writers, and disk jockeys whose key responsibility was to use their influence to promote Ghana as a tourist destination.

However, this strategy by the government did not seem to yield any fruit as things did not really work as planned.

Mr. Mantey in reaction to this said, “We acknowledge that all these people qualify to sell Ghana, but the new phase of selling tourism is not by selecting a few people as tourism ambassadors to sell the country.”

According to him, every Ghanaian has the mandate to sell Ghana wherever they find themselves.

“We must see the Ghana agenda. I started saying this before I went into Governance. I have always said that the Ghana agenda must be paramount to every Ghanaian.”

He also revealed on the show that the Tourism, Arts and Culture Ministry is working towards making the ‘Beyond the Return’ celebrations beneficial to every individual or business in the tourism space.