Prof. Eunice Amissah of the Department of Hospitality and Tourism Management, University of Cape Coast, Ghana, has called for formidable collaboration among African tourism practitioners to foster innovative digital culture in the industry.
Amissah made the call on Friday during the closing ceremony of the sixth edition of AccraWeizo West Africa Travel and Tourism expo, held in Accra, Ghana, with theme “Tourism Development Through Digitalisation”.
She said that coordinated efforts must be made to foster an innovative digital culture in tourism bussinesses to help destinations to be globally competitive.
According to her, this can only be done through tourism stakeholders collaborations.
“Deliberate efforts must be made to improve on the sector, we must explore the digital space effectively to be globally competitive as Africans.
“So far, digital technologies have helped us tremendously, revolutionising tourism enterprises, products, experiences, business ecosystem and destinations,” she said.
Also speaking, Dr Kwesi Eyison, Vice President, Ghana Tourism Federation (GHATOF), canvassed for improved digital skills among African tourism practitioners
“As we embrace digitalisation of our operations in the tourism and hospitality industry, it must be in tandem with aggressive rescaling and upscaling of digital skills among our industry practitioners.
“This is needed, especially where majority of our practitioners operate within the Micro, Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (MSMEs), so we do not leave anyone behind.
“Similarly, in the transition from school to the world of work of our teeming youth population, targeted relevant digital skills must be prioritised to enhance and solve industry digital skills gap,” he said.
Dr Kobby Mensah of the Dpartment of Marketing and Entrepreneurship, University of Ghana, said upscaling digitalisation in tourism was essential for proper management of tourism destinations image.
Similarly, Dr Olanma Ojukwu, co-founder, GOTA International, Benin Republic, said digitalising tourism activities was quite important as it allowed for efficiency in tourism marketing and helped to save time and cost.
Ojukwu noted that this also assisted in ensuring customer satisfaction.
“Every tourism firm that must make advancement must embrace digital technology in its operations, let us all make do with whatever app or gadgets at our disposal.
“Technology is moving at a speed, and currently google just introduced a software which helps to book appointments, also makes phone calls on your behalf, these are digital applications we should put to use to make us more competitive,” she said.
Akosua Shirley, a travel consultant, spoke on the need to address the challenges confronting individuals in the process of engaging the digital space.
Shirley said access to internet, breech of cyber security, rapid change in technology and more challenges had been experienced by many and must be addressed,
He said digitalising tourism activities would help in feasibility and brand awareness.