Reflections on tourism policies in Ghana

Abstract

While the evolving nature of the tourism industry has tended to be a major focus of much recent debate, there is a growing body of literature reporting on policy implementation limitations hindering tourism’s role in environmental conservation and local development in Africa. This paper traces the historical evolution of tourism policies in Ghana, summarizes the dominant themes and appraises their effectiveness in promoting local development and environmental conservation. It concludes that while the tourism industry in Ghana operates within a policy framework, many questions remain about the extent of policy actualization, as less than 50% of the objectives of all tourism policies since the 1970s are implemented.

Keywords:

• Tourism policies
• Ghana
• local development
• environmental conservation
• sustainable tourism