Ghana Tour Operators Offer a Model for Ancestry Trips
Photo Credit: Independence Arch and Independence Square in Accra, Ghana's capital Flickr / Ben Sutherland
Skift Take
Ghana's success in attracting members of the African diaspora to visit should drive its neighbors to develop similar strategies. They can see there's enormous amounts of money to be made from a lucrative African American market re-energizing from the pandemic as tourists are eager for travel to the continent.
Ancestry tourism has experienced a significant boom in recent years. Locations, many in Europe, were attracting large numbers of visitors eager to explore places connected to their family history.
But one country outside of Europe, in particular, has especially benefited from this growing popularity. Spurred by the success of the Year of Return, tour operators in Ghana have seen business surge beyond the 2019 initiative by increasingly promoting, not just family ties, but the cultural bounds travelers in the African diaspora have with an entire region so many people were cut off from by slavery. That interest is on the upswing again after the depths of the pandemic.
Tourism businesses in Ghana are heavily targeting members of the diaspora — especially those who are a part of an African American travel market growing in financial clout and increasingly eager to explore their ancestral homelands.
"We feel that given the wealth that African Americans an
