The Ghana Tourism Authority is optimistic that this year’s National Chocolate week will make chocolate tourism a key feature of its product offerings.
The National Chocolate Week celebration, under the theme: ‘Eat Chocolate, Stay Healthy, Grow Ghana’, and sub-themed ‘Our Chocolate, Our Health, Our Wealth’, is part of efforts to promote the domestic consumption of Ghana chocolate and other cocoa-based products.
One of the biggest draws to the Celebrations is the set-up of a Chocolate City at the Tetteh Quarshie Roundabout in Accra.
At the Chocolate City, various products such as soaps, alcoholic beverages, cosmetics and confectionaries made with Ghana’s premium cocoa are exhibited for visitors to sample and purchase.
The CEO of the Ghana Tourism Authority, Akwasi Agyeman said his outfit’s partnership with the Ghana Cocoa Board in this chocolate week celebration is aimed at boosting the consumption of cocoa and cocoa products among locals and foreigners alike to push the tourism sector which has suffered at the hands of the COVD-19 pandemic to recover.
“We believe that the collaboration between the Tourism Authority and COCOBOD will lead to increased consumption of cocoa-based products, especially in our hospitality facilities. Once we are able to do that, local productions will go on more and that will also lead to jobs, then the farmers will also be able to produce more,” said Akwasi Agyeman, the CEO of the Tourism Authority.
“So the entire value chain stands to benefit from this partnership and so far, we are also keen to make chocolate tourism a key feature of our product offerings. We have built a new museum at the Tetteh Quarshie cocoa farm and we are going to expand it to ensure that people who come to Ghana are able to see that Ghana has cocoa which is one of the best in the world.”
The CEO of the Ghana Cocoa Board, Joseph Boahen Aidoo further called for joint stakeholder participation in taking advantage of the celebrations to push the cocoa industry beyond the borders of Ghana.
He said, “The collective efforts of stakeholders is imperative and required to increase the consumption of cocoa locally. At the moment, the consumption of cocoa is very low. When we compare ourselves to Europe, Germany, and other places, per capita is around the right kilos per person. Here in Ghana, we’re still around 0.53. We are far below so there’s the need for us to improve upon consumption of chocolate.”
