The Ghana Tourism Authority (GTA), Tema Office, has commemorated this year’s World Tourism Day with a clean-up exercise at the Chemu Lagoon estuary.
The massive clean-up exercise was done by GTA officials, personnel of the Eastern Naval Command, Ghana National Fire Service, as well as staff of the Tema Metropolitan Assembly (TMA) and students of the Nyaniba Institute
The World Tourism Day is celebrated annually on September 27, to raise awareness on the role tourism play in the social, cultural, political and economic sectors of the nation.
This year’s celebration is Under the theme ” Tourism and job, a better future for all”.
Speaking to Ghana News Agency, the Acting Tema Regional Manager of the GTA, Mr Charles Buabin explained that, the GRA team chose to clean the Chemu Lagoon estuary and its environs because the area could be one of the biggest tourist destinations in future that would provide jobs for many as well as provide foreign earnings to the country.
“This a big tourism attraction, when the coconut grow up, we can have a camping area, people will come and camp, we can have a visitors’ centre where people will go for briefing about Tema before touring the area. This could create jobs for the youth”, he stated.
He also noted that due to its Tourism potential, there is the need to ensure that, the area is kept neat and more coconut trees planted along the estuary.
He revealed that, 200 coconut trees were planted at the place during the 2018 celebration to beautify the place, however 180 of the plants survived necessitating the need to replace the 20 that withered away.
He noted that, tourism accounted for at least one out of every 10 jobs in the country and hoped that the figure would increase as GTA is doing their best to promote tourism among citizens.
According to him, plans are underway to intensify education among residents on the need to observe good environmental practices along the Chemu due to its tourism potential.
