Structural Adjustment Programme and Tourism Development in Ghana (1985-2005)

Abstract

At the prodding of the IMF/World Bank, several developing countries undertook socio-economic reforms in the 1980s aimed at restructuring and
stabilizing their economies. Dubbed structural adjustment programmes
(SAPs), the specific reforms included trade liberalisation, privatization, devaluation and export promotion. In Ghana tourism, which had hitherto been
an insignificant industry in the national economy, was in 1985 declared
along with three other sectors as a ‘priority sector’ and promoted as a tool
for diversification and for earning foreign exchange in the context of SAP.
Between 1985 and 2005, tourism flourished in Ghana in the wake of SAP,
even though the sector’s key components i.e. accommodation, intermediaries and car rentals enjoyed dissimilar fortunes. More importantly, business
travel emerged as the catalyst in the transformation of the sector, a process
which underlines the link between the tourism sector and the socioeconomic and political environments in which the former operates. Decision-makers and tourism planners ought, therefore, to appreciate this link in
order not to conceive tourism development as the mere construction and
marketing of attractions and accommodation facilities as if leisure travel
held sway in the country.