The Role of Creative Artists in Promoting Traditional Cultural Tourism in Ghana

This paper is aimed at exploring the role of creative artists in promoting
traditional cultural tourism in Ghana. It is premised on the fact that, the full
potential of traditional cultural tourism remains underdeveloped in spite of
the rich cultural heritage and the abundance of creative talent in Ghana.
This situation hinders the capacity of creative artists to significantly
contribute to the growth of cultural tourism, social entrepreneurship,
and economic development, although, some creative artists in the
industry are contributing without being noticed. Traditional knowledge
and cultural expressions have been at the forefront of cultural tourism,
which is embedded in the folklore of any society. Folklore has been the
intangible asset that has driven many people’s tastes for cultural tourism
and the role of the creative artist can shape and forge a new dimension
to create a creative economy for sustainable development and for social
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entrepreneurship, and business opportunities for community and national
economic impact. The study dwells on a qualitative approach reviewing
archival materials with observations and interviews to seek a deeper
understanding of the role of creative artistes and artists in promoting
cultural tourism using their creative skills as economic agents. Using
convenient purposive sampling, thirty participants were interviewed
and it came to the known that creative artists are packaging beverages,
using waste materials uniquely, traditional festivals, traditional music,
and traditional entertainment creatively needing government’s support to
scale it for socioeconomic impact