Welcome African-Americans as ‘beentos’ - Jake
tells tour guides
Accra, Dec. 11, GNA - Mr Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey,
Minister of Tourism and Diasporan Relations, on
Monday urged tour guides to welcome
African-Americans who come to this country as ‘beentos’.
"Make African-Americans feel that they have
truly returned home and regard them as original
‘beentos’," he said at the opening of a two-week
training programme for tour guides in the
country.
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The tour guides drawn from all the 10 regions
would study about the Accra city tour and the
pilgrimage route related to the slave trade.
The Minister revealed that African-Americans
spent about 40 billion dollars a year on
holidays and it was important
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North
American craft on tarmac in Accra |
that Ghana attracted such visitors to earn
some foreign exchange.
"If we can have them coming for holidays
regularly we are sure of having bigger
investments in the country and a boost to the
economy; we can expect that Africans in the
Diaspora will bring money, and skills," he said.
Mr Obetsebi-Lamptey explained that the Joseph
Project, which aims at attracting over a million
African-Americans to the country next year, was
part of a bigger programme dubbed "Akwaaba
Anyemi".
The Akwaaba Anyemi programme, among other
things, hopes to educate Ghanaians to recognize
African-Americans as relatives and to treat them
as such.
Mr Obetsebi-Lamptey noted that tour guiding was
an important pillar in the tourism industry
hence the need to train them to be able to
handle tourists well.
"Tourists who come to Ghana do not come here
just to sleep in big hotels or eat in
restaurants but they come here for the tourism
experience and that lies on the shoulders of the
tour guide," he said
He said tour guides could make a lot of money
from their job if they did it well and urged
participants to take tour guiding seriously.
GNA
