Professor Kobby Mensah, Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Tourism Development Company (GTDC) and Professor of Marketing at the University of Ghana, Legon, has revealed that he was genuinely scared when he first encountered the state of the organisation after assuming office.
Speaking in an interview with Emmanuel Frimpong on CH TV, Professor Mensah admitted that his first meeting with the outgoing CEO left him deeply concerned. According to him, GTDC was virtually unknown, even to people within the tourism space.
“I was completely scared the first time I met the outgoing CEO,” he said. “GTDC had become almost invisible. In fact, according to him, even his own friends only heard about GTDC when my appointment was announced in the news.”
Professor Mensah described GTDC as a near non-entity, despite the fact that it was established in 1972, long before the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC). He explained that although both institutions share similar investment frameworks, GTDC is solely dedicated to tourism investment, while GIPC has a much broader mandate.
“Because of the creation and growth of GIPC, one might even be tempted to think GTDC had become irrelevant,” he noted. “But you can’t completely write it off because GTDC is meant to be very specific and strategic for tourism. Unfortunately, it never developed the capacity to match that mandate.”
From a marketing perspective, Professor Mensah stressed that an institution no one knows cannot attract investment.
“If even local people don’t know you, how do you attract investors?” he asked. “Brands don’t sell themselves. When you develop a product and your target market doesn’t know it, it is not yet a brand. Branding is about identity and differentiation and GTDC had neither.”
He explained that although GTDC was once popular and owned several tourism assets, by the time he took over, the organisation was in a deplorable state.
“We had just one broken-down vehicle, and that vehicle doesn’t even exist now. Staff had not been paid for almost three months. People came to the office every day but there was virtually nothing to do. The only staff who were actively working were those at Assin Manso and the Big Tree, because tourists still visited those sites.”
At the headquarters, the situation was even worse.
“There were no cars, so drivers were idle. Rentals had dropped. There was no funding from government. Salaries, electricity, and water bills were all supposed to be paid from internally generated funds but there was no revenue.”
As a business and marketing professional, Professor Mensah said the model simply could not work.
“A company raises money after it has invested in machinery, human resources, and systems, and then takes the product to market. Here, we had no tools, no systems, and no revenue handles, yet we were expected to be self-sufficient. How do you pay salaries or even keep the lights on?”
He explained that the organisation survived mainly on dividends from legacy investments.
“When those dividends came in, they were used to pay salaries. Once the money was exhausted, by March or June, staff had to wait until the next business cycle. That is not how a business should operate, because dividends are never guaranteed.”
Professor Mensah, however, believes the narrative has begun to change.
“Since we took over, we have turned things around. The office is now active. We have introduced new revenue streams such as Accra by Night, the Ghana Tourism Marketplace, the Ghana Tourism Investment Platform, and soon, the Ghana Tourism Events Calendar.”
He acknowledged that marketing remains a major challenge but praised his team for their dedication.
“I must give credit to my staff. They have been incredibly supportive and have worked extremely hard to bring GTDC back to life.”
Writer: Frederick Nortey
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