The Chamber for Tourism Industry has hinted on tapping in the market of sports tourism and developing that sector in Ghana.
This was made known by the newly appointed Chief Operating Officer (COO), Angela Akua Asante, while discussing the 2020 African Digitization Conference on Tourism and Trade (ADCOTT) which is set to happen online on August 25th, 2020.
According to her, Ghana is one of the hubs of sports especially football and boxing hence it is untenable that it does not tap into sports tourism as it is a worthy venture.
“In a country that breathes football and boxing and which has produced some of the best athletes in history, a country where rich landscapes across our regions offer the perfect setting for activities ranging from paragliding to canoe sports and much more, overlooking the untapped market of sports tourism appears to be a major error. The mammoth investments which sports infrastructure requires will be worth it on the long-term. It is no debate.”
According to a report from Sports Tourism in India (2014), the sports tourism sector “equates to $600 billion on an annual basis” for the country. Another report in 2016 shows that global sports tourism industry was valued at $1.41 trillion and a projection for 2021 was $5.72 trillion but the outbreak of Covid-19 has affected the estimate.
Sports tourism statistics from the World Sport Tourism Show also indicate that this tourism product contributes to 10 per cent of the global tourism industry, resulting in up to 15 million international arrivals annually and a forecasted six per cent short-term growth every year.
However, in this multitude of attractive figures, Africa particularly Ghana, is barely earning from this sector. It is against this backdrop that Ms. Asante is optimistic that developing sports tourism is a win-win situation as it will in turn boost tourism in general.
“Among the multitude of examples supporting the importance of developing sports tourism in Ghana, West Africa and the entire continent of Africa, just think of how the frequent movement of sports supporters for home-and-away kind of competitions will push road and air travel to be more accessible and efficient, and in turn boost the traveling industry. It’s a win-win scenario.”
Although business visits are predominantly the reason for international tourist arrivals in Ghana with figures averaging 39.8 per cent in the past four years, sports-related visits accounted for only one per cent in 2019 and averaged only 0.75 per cent annually since 2016, the lowest of the 12 categories of purpose of visits.
In 2018 when Ghana hosted the Africa Women’s Cup of Nations, it was recorded that there was a 500 per cent surge in sports tourism arrivals as tourists were pouring in from the top three finalist nations Cameroon, Nigeria, and South Africa to support their countries. Remarkably, the numbers jumped to a record 1.5 per cent compared to 0.3per cent in 2017 and 0.2 per cent in 2016; proof that there is potential in sports tourism.
It is for this reason that the new COO of Chamber for Tourism Industry emphasized the need to invest in the sector to give the continent a different face in global minds.
“There’s a massive need to build sustainable state-of-the-art sporting facilities and implement training programmes to ensure the maintenance of those. Sports tourism must become one of the faces of the continent when international and domestic tourists think about African or Ghanaian tourism.”
However, the World Bank’s breakdown of tourism product development opportunities in 2011 for Sub-Saharan African did not include sports tourism among the various identified types of tourism in Africa.
Those seven products were beach tourism, business tourism, cultural heritage tourism, diaspora tourism, intra-regional tourism, nature/adventure tourism, and safari tourism.
Also, in an analysis presented in July 2019 by a Senior Team Officer at Ghana’s Ministry of Tourism, Arts, and Culture, Dr. Alphonse Kumaza did not include sports tourism in the list of “basic constituent of tourism products”. The analysis which was published in The Ghanaian Times singled out “theme parks (amusement parks), facilities and infrastructure”.
One of the Chamber for Tourism Industry Ghana’s aim is to reciprocally lend a hand to the country’s sports industry namely the Ministry of Youth and Sports, all sporting associations, sports data collection and fan engagement agencies, sports media outlets, and sports investors — to transform sports tourism into Ghana and Africa’s eighth tourism product in the next few years.
