Africans living within and outside the continent have been urged to visit, explore Africa, and get to know the environment.
Founder and CEO of Alewah Group, Sadika Esi Kwenuah, who made this call, said the invitation was important as it gave Africans a chance to grab vast opportunities.
She stated this when Travel with Alewa, a subsidiary of the Alewah Group, launched the maiden edition of its annual vacation trips for tourists. This year’s event was under the theme ‘December Cruise’.
“December is mostly the time people travel because of the winter. There are a lot of things that go on within the year, and as business people, sometimes we don’t get to look around us, so we go through a lot of hustling through the year without even getting to know about our environment.”
“So this is the opportunity for us to take a break and have a life balance with the family, people we love, the country we love, and places we want to visit.”
“Today we have visited three places, and that’s a big plus for us. We were surprised to get the kind of people we were able to mobilise, especially when you are starting with local people,” she said on December 26, 2022.
According to her, organising vacation trips will promote local tourism across Africa, not just Ghana.
“We started with a lot of locals, about 80 percent from Ghana and other African countries like Nigeria and Liberia, and then 20 percent from the diaspora. It’s about time that anybody in the diaspora needs to come back home because Africa is now.”
She mentioned that the initiative is also to project the Ghanaian culture, educate travellers, support skills and talents, noting that Africa abounds with untapped opportunities.
“We have visited so much; for example, today we had to hire a professional tour guide who has been in the system for about 20 years. So he knows what he was saying and the kind of information he was giving us.
When we visit communities and people who are doing well, we also support talent and skills so that we can invest with them because there are many diasporans in our midst.
There are a lot of opportunities in Africa. There are a lot of people who are looking forward to exhibiting or telling the world about what they can do. If you do not travel, you cannot see. If you are of African descent, you must come over and rediscover your continent.”
The Entrepreneur, Designer, and Consultant further intimated that tourism empowers and impacts locals and boosts economic growth.
“When I visited the Amedzofe Canopy Walk, Akosombo Bridge Resort, I loved the ecosystem there. I feel like that’s not the only thing they can build. There are more tourist ideas people can build around to bring revenue back to the community, and there are also a lot of talents there. When we visited the Tafi Monkey Sanctuary too, there were a lot of hand creatives, people that weave Kente, and export opportunities.”
Whatever you are looking for is here in Africa. We have to now sit down and rediscover the place. From time to time, we will be visiting some other places in Africa, like Botswana, Rwanda, and South Africa, as well as other beautiful places with other great opportunities as well.”
Esi Kwenuah underscored the importance of taking a break to know one’s environment.
“There are a lot of things that go on within the year, and as business people, sometimes we don’t get to look around us, so we go through a lot of hustling through the year without even getting to know about our environment.”
She expressed gratitude to travellers and called for more collaborations and sponsors.
“We want people to understand the essence of travelling and the benefits they are going to gain from it. So I’m looking forward to sponsors that will come on board so that everybody will like to travel.
Travel with Alewah is a non-profitable sustainable tourism initiative under the Alewah Foundation that allows tourists all around the world to have a deeper travel experience, learn to discover cultures, and talents and collaborate with locals from Africa.
