University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh A STUDY OF “KWAHU EASTER” FESTIVAL AS A TOURISM HALLMARK EVENT BY GYASI KATE 10357604 THIS THESIS IS SUBMITTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF GHANA, LEGON IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENT FOR THE AWARD OF MPHIL GEOGRAPHY AND RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT DEGREE JUNE, 2013 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh DECLARATION I hereby declare that this work is the result of my own research and has not been presented by anyone for any academic award in this or any other university. All reference used in the work have been fully acknowledged. Any shortfalls therein are my sole responsibility. ……………………………… ..…………………… Gyasi Kate Date (Candidate) …………………………………. ……………………… Prof. Alex B. Asiedu Date (Principal Supervisor) …………………………………. ……………………… Dr. K. Awere Gyekye Date (Supervisor) i University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh DEDICATION To the Almighty God who makes impossible, possible. Again I dedicate this work to my dear husband Mr James Nketsiah, my mother Madam Georgina Kumi, my Uncle Mr. Adu Boahen and my grandfather, the late Ofori Danquah, for their great sacrifice for my education; and my wonderful children for their encouragement and support throughout this course. ii University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I am grateful to the almighty God for seeing me through another stage of my academic pursuit. First and foremost, a very special “thank you” goes to my Principal Supervisor, Prof. Alex Boakye Asiedu, of the Department of Geography and Resource Development, University of Ghana, for his guidance, suggestions and more importantly for his patience in reading through my scripts that have made this work a success. Again, I thank him for making his unlimited tourism and research knowledge available to me. My sincere expression of gratitude is also extended to my co-Supervisor, Dr. K. Awere Gyekye for offering many insight suggestions and recommendations that contributed to this thesis. I also wish to thank Dr. Joseph Teye of the Department of Geography and Resource Development for his unique way of inspiring and challenging me to go for the extra in any given task. He always hammered on the can-do-attitude, and this pushed me to be rigorous in this study. I deeply appreciate the contributions of all the wonderful and hard-working lecturers of the Department of Geography and Resource Development, University of Ghana, especially Dr Emmanuel Atua for their great efforts in making the Discipline of Geography relevant to the development discourse in Africa and the world. I acknowledge the contributions made by officials of Ghana Tourist Authority (Accra), Kwahu South District Assembly and Kwahu Traditional Council without whom the work could not have been a success. iii University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 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 iv University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 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. v University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh TABLE OF CONTENTS Content Page DECLARATION ................................................................................................................... i DEDICATION ...................................................................................................................... ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENT .................................................................................................. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ..................................................................................................... vi LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................................... xi LIST OF FIGURES ............................................................................................................ xii LIST OF PLATES ............................................................................................................ xiii LIST OF MAPS ................................................................................................................. xiv GLOSSARY ........................................................................................................................ xv CHAPTER ONE ................................................................................................................... 1 GENERAL INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................. 1 1.1 Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 1 1.2 Explanation of Concepts and Definition of Terms ......................................................... 6 1.3 Statement of the Problem ................................................................................................ 8 1.4 Objectives of the Study ................................................................................................. 10 1.5 Research Questions ....................................................................................................... 11 1.6 Hypotheses .................................................................................................................... 11 1.7 Proposition .................................................................................................................... 11 1.8 Theoretical Issues .......................................................................................................... 12 1.9 Conceptual Framework ................................................................................................. 15 1.10 Methodology Used ...................................................................................................... 19 1.10.1 The Study Area ..................................................................................................... 19 1.10.2 Sources of Data and Method of Data Collection .................................................. 20 1.10.3 Survey Instruments ............................................................................................... 22 vi University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 1.10.4 Data Analysis ....................................................................................................... 23 1.11 Significance of the Study ............................................................................................ 23 1.12. Limitations of the Study ............................................................................................. 24 1.13. Organization of the Study .......................................................................................... 25 CHAPTER TWO ................................................................................................................ 27 LITERATURE REVIEW.................................................................................................... 27 2.0 Organization of sub topics ............................................................................................ 27 2.1 Brief History of Tourism ............................................................................................... 27 2.2 What is Tourism? .........................................................................................................