A Study Of “Kwahu Easter” Festival As A Tourism Hallmark Event

ABSTRACT In Ghana, the tourism sector is plagued with monotonous products, and these require urgent diversification. The questions have always been: diversify to where and with what new products? This study proposed an answer: diversify to hallmark events and to cultural tourism products. There is the need to package some of our popular, established, indigenous, traditional festivals as tourism hallmark events, to diversify Ghana‟s tourist product offering, and by large improve her domestic and international tourist earnings. Traditional festivals abound in all the ten regions of the country. If these festivals are structured and packaged well, it can be used to promote tourism. One such festival is the “Easter Festival” by the Kwahus. This festival has now taken a national and international dimension due to the touristic activities such as paragliding which was recently introduced into the festival. Before festivals and special events can be used to diversify tourism industry in the country, there is the need to determine the perceptions and the attitude of the residents in the host region. In this study it was observed that socio- economic variables (age, gender, and education), personal benefits derivation and level of involvement in the festival shaped residents‟ perception in negative and positive manner. One implication of these findings is that the factors that shaped negative perceptions and attitudes could be addressed through education. It was also discovered that, there are many socio-economic benefits associated with the festival such as employment, income generation and so on. Moreover, evidence gathered reveals that, the area has many potential tourist products associated with KEF which could be developed to promote tourism in the country. Again, it was revealed that motives of festival tourists vary in relation to country of origin. Most of the foreign tourists attended the festival as experts in paragliding who wanted to v witness and participate in paragliding. It was also discovered that paragliding was the main touristic activity that drew much people both locally and internationally to the festival. The relevance of the findings is that there is abundant wealth of tourist products in Ghana which have not been fully developed or branded to promote social and economic growth; this can be achieved through integrating tourist issues into policy formulation and promotions of private participation in tourism development.