Dubbed; “The Domestic and Outbound Tourism Survey (DOTS)”, it will involve the collection, compilation , analysis and dissemination of tourism information on Ghanaians and non-Ghanaians who are resident in the country.

Covering a one-year period, it will, therefore, gather data on domestic visitors travelling within the country for tourism purposes and outbound visitors travelling outside the country for tourism activities.

The DOTS, is one of the four surveys to be conducted by the GSS primarily aimed at compiling the Tourism Satellite Account (TSA), a document which will serve as the basis for computing the sector’s true relevance to the national economy.

The rest are;  The Ghana International Travellers’ Survey (GITS), Accommodation Units Survey (AUS), and Tourism Supply Establishment Survey (TSES).

The survey was launched yesterday ( Monday, April 17, 2023) at Winneba.

Realising projections

The Government Statistician, Professor Samuel K. Annim, who officially launched the survey, stated that the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture (MoTAC) had projected that the sector could potentially attract 4.3 million tourists translating into foreign exchange worth $1.5 billion while creating direct and indirect employment for 1.4 million people in the country.

“This is a sector that could provide us with all our resource needs and that is why we want to check whether indeed, these numbers can be attained.

The only way we can take Ghana forward is to get quality data and point policy makers to the right statistics”, he added.

Therefore, the DOTS, Prof. Annim said, would provide comprehensive data on; how attractive the country’s tourist sites were, the facilities available, number of people visiting and how realistic the ministry’s projections were. 

Tourism and the SDGs

The Chairman of the Technical Team for the survey, Prof. Kwaku Boakye, in his keynote address, said the developmental ability of tourism had not been lost on government as they continued to invest in exploratory ways to optimise benefits from the existing tourism resources with a view to enhancing their economic fortunes.

Therefore, tourism, he said, when properly planned and developed could be used as a vehicle to achieve many of the sustainable development goals directly and indirectly.  

“For example, tourism has been empirically known to contribute to poverty reduction (SDG1), reduced hunger (SDG2), created decent work and economic growth (SDG8), and contributed to conserving the environment and sustainability of (SDGs 11 &13)”, Prof. Boakye explained.

The chairman, who doubles as a professor of tourism at the University of Cape Coast, urged 
all residents to participate willingly in the exercise to help compute the true contribution of the tourism industry to the national economy.