THE DEVELOPMENT POTENTIALS OF GHANA’S CAPE COAST AS A DESTINATION

ABSTRACT
The tourism industry has contributed significantly to Ghana‘s economy, particularly in recent times, as the sector continues to demonstrate its potential as a key driver of growth. For example, between 2000 and 2005, visitor arrivals and spending increased by 46 per cent and 68 percent respectively. The industry is currently the third largest foreign exchange earner after merchandise exports and remittances from abroad and has become one of the most important and fastest growing sectors of the Ghanaian economy. Tour-ism receipts in Ghana are forecasted to reach $1.5 billion by the end of 2010.Cape Coast municipality that is regarded as the brain box of Ghana‘s tourism still lack the concept and dignity tourism site should attain. Therefore there is the need to access and evaluate the current situation of the tourism sector in the muni-cipality and as a result recommend what needs to be done and has been done by more world famous tour-ism destinations and countries to get to where they are today.

This thesis was purely conducted based on literature review by reviewing, analyzing and authenticating the projects and reports already written on similar topic and project. Tourism textbooks, journals, Internet sources and internet reports were the secondary sources reviewed.

The keys findings of the research were aimed at analyzing the tourism potentials of Cape Coast as a destination so as to make it attractive to both domestic and international tourists.


TABLE OF CONTENTS
1 Introduction
            1.1 Research Problem
            1.2 Research aim and Objectives
            1.3 Methodology
            1.4 The researcher‘s relation to the destination

2 Tourism destination development
            2.1 Definition of a destination and the tourism industry
            2.2 The Destination Lifecycle model
            2.3 The scope of tourism industry
            2.4 Tourism as a factor in regional development
            2.5 Pull factors in tourism
            2.5.1 Attractions
            2.5.2 Ecotourism
            2.5.3   Culture as a pull factor
            2.6 Summary of the theory

3 The Research Settings
            3.1 Case study
            3.1.1 Documentary analysis
            3.2 Bench marking
            3.3 Literature Review
            3.4 Reliability and Validity

4 Travel and tourism in Ghana
            4.1 Ghana in Brief
            4.2 Pre-Independence travel in Ghana
            4.3 Tourism in modern Ghana
            4.4 The Future of Tourism in Ghana
            4.4.1   Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS)
            4.4.2   New Partnership for Africa‘s Development (NEPAD)

5 Cape Coast in Ghana as a destination
            5.1 Accessibility
            5.2 Tourism potential in Cape Coast
            5.2.1 Historical heritage
            5.2.2 Natural environmental heritage
            5.2.3 Other man-made attractions

6 Discussions
            6.1 SWOT Analysis
            6.1.1 Strengths
            6.1.2 Weaknesses
            6.1.3 Opportunities
            6.1.4 Threats
            6.1.5 Some operational problems of the development of tourism industry in the Cape Coast
            6.2 Prospects of the tourism industry in the Cape Coast

7 Conclusion, recommendations and further studies
8 Bibliography 


1    Introduction
International tourism has been a key industry in some favorably located less develop countries like Mexico, Turkey, the Caribbean islands and so on for decades. These countries have benefited from the internation-al tourism as a result of being adjacent to the key generating countries of the Western Europe and North America. However, as the frontiers of international tourism spread from these places to more remote and less developed peripheries, these nations have since the early 1980s been losing part of their markets.

One of such remote periphery where international tourism is now experiencing impressive growth rates is sub-Saharan Africa. Ghana is among the African countries where the tourism industry has suddenly moved from sideline to the centre stage of economic strategies. Ghana‘s economy, which is largely agro-based, was in the past characterized by dwindling foreign reserves, high inflation, depreciation of the cedi and fluctuating growth. Tourism industry is the fastest growing service industry in Ghana and has grown to become one of the key sub-sectors of the Ghanaian economy since 1982. It has shown substantial an-nual growth, and hence more research has gone into the operations of the sector in order to examine its economic potential and contribution as well as how the industry could be internationally recognized and patronizes most especially Cape Coast municipality which is regarded as the heartbeat of tourism in Gha-na. It is the third foreign exchange earner after merchandise export and remittances from abroad. Areas the sector has shown greater improvements include employment generation (direct and indirect) interna-tional tourist arrivals, foreign exchange earnings, revenue accruing to tourist sites, increase in number of hotels and similar establishments and other tourism supply organizations (Koutra Christina 2007).

Currently the tourism sector contributed more than 1.2 billion dollars annually which is five per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and provided 250,000 direct jobs to the economy. In West Africa, Ghana leads its neighbors as the number one tourist destination. The growth of tourism in this country is a result of the political stability, as well as social, economic and technological changes that have taken place in the country. It is also due to the hosting of important events like Pan African Festivals (PANAFEST), Eman-cipation Day Celebrations, National Festival of Arts and Culture (NAFAC), among others (Ghana statis-tical service 2009).

1.1      Research Problem
Cape Coast Metropolitan District is the capital of Central region of Ghana is noted for tourism, fishing and agriculture. It is said to be the leading producers of fishing industry in Ghana. It also contributes to agriculture so far as food is concerned. However, the metropolitan‘s agricultural industry (fishing and crop) has not played any significant role in the economic development of the area. As a result, there is high unemployment and low economic development in the metropolis and this has adversely affected the stan-dard of living for the local people.

Tourism has played major role economically in countries such as Mexico, Turkey, Nepal ,India to mention a few, Therefore, the keys findings of the research is aimed at analyzing the tourism potentials of Cape
Coast as a destination so as to make it attractive to both domestic and international tourists thereby......

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Item Type: Project Material  |  Attribute: 55 pages  |  Chapters: 1-5
Format: MS Word  |  Price: N3,000  |  Delivery: Within 30Mins.
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