Tourism authorities from five different countries have nominated Ghanaian Broadcaster, Abeiku Santana’s Kaya Tours among Africa’s first 100 tour operators.

The nomination has led to Mr Santana and his Kaya Tours Company receiving an award at the recently held Akwaaba Africa Travel Market expo organized by Africa Travel Quarterly News in Lagos, Nigeria.

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The five countries that nominated Abeiku’s Kaya Tours include South Africa, Zambia, Kenya, Nigeria and Mauritius.

In an exclusive interview with Adomonline.com shortly after receiving the awards, Mr Santana revealed that even though he has worked with the tourism authorities of these countries, his nomination came to him as a surprise.

According to him, South African Tourism has provided him with training in the areas of ground handling, destination management and all other tourism-related services and products.

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On the awards itself, an elated Abeiku commented: “This award gives me hope and tells me that I can do more”.

This award comes to add up to my induction into the International Travel and Tourism Professionals Association, an affiliate of the United Nations World Tourism Organisation which is also due for Mombasa Kenya in October this year.

As an operator within the tourism space in Ghana, Abeiku has called for improvement in service delivery in the areas of customer and client services, hotel, transport, food, beverages, aviation and other related services.

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“It will surprise you to know that having a vacation in Ghana is more expensive than having a vacation in Dubai,” Abeiku decried the high cost of accessing Ghana as a tourism destination.

He has therefore called on all players within the industry to help make Ghana as a destination a little cheaper for tourists.

The Akwaaba Africa Travel Market is an annual Africa tourism exhibition show and a major international travel fair in West Africa where tour operators brainstorm on how to improve Africa as a destination for tourism.

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The show brings together all the players in the tourism industry including airlines, destination management companies, hotels, online travel agencies, food and beverage companies and other tour operators.

This year, the show deliberated on the challenges of destination marketing as panellists looked at effective models of marketing destinations, borrowing examples from Dubai and South Africa.

This year’s expo also looked at Aviation in Africa, especially with African carriers and the challenge of profitability.