The Minister of Tourism, Arts and Culture, Mrs Barbara Oteng-Gyasi, has revealed that a total of $1.9bn has been generated into Ghana’s economy in the name of the “Year of Return”.

She disclosed that 200,000 people in total have arrived into the country as part of the “the Year of Return” programme.

The “Year of Return” is a year-long event of the return of the descendants of the first enslaved Africans from James Town in Accra to James town in Virginia in the United States of America (USA).

Speaking at a ceremony at Anomabo to inaugurate a tourist centre and hand over facilities at the Heroes Garden which has been transformed into a Memorial Garden of Return to boost tourism in the town, the said the “Year of Return” had cemented Ghana’s pan-African legacy and had put a global spotlight on the country and helped to position it as a historic, cultural and vibrant hub and had as well changed the narrative of what was reported about Ghana and the rest of Africa in general.

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She said the Ghana Tourism Authority (GTA) had also had indications of a 100 per cent hotel occupancy rate recorded for the last week of November with increased bookings for tours to areas linked to the trans-Atlantic slave trade such as Cape Coast and Elmina.

She said the memorial garden and tourist centre at Anomabo was part of the social impact and community development project and part of the of the ‘Year of Return’ programme, adding that it was expected to invigorate local businesses.

She thus urged the community to take full advantage of it.