The World Tourism Organization, its UNWTO. Themis Foundation and the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture of the Republic of Ghana are jointly organizing the UNWTO Sub-regional Capacity Building Course on “Tourism Marketing: from product to experience”, in Accra, Ghana, to be held from 12 to 17 October 2017. The working language for the course will be English.

Digital technologies have introduced major changes to tourists’ behaviour, tastes and models of consumption. Traditional, one-way communication activities are rapidly losing their effectiveness, threatened by changes brought by experienced and digitally sophisticated consumers. While services and goods increasingly become commoditised, consumers unquestionably desire unique experiences. Therefore, businesses must respond to this request by designing and promoting experiences to add value to their goods and services. This is particularly the case in the tourism sector, where the purchase of goods and services is instrumental in living an experience, rather than fulfilling a need.

Thus, in a more and more competitive environment, the design of tourism experiences becomes a key issue in the tourism offer development process and consequently, in the destination quality and competitiveness enhancement. Tourism experiences integrate elements related to emotional and psychological attributes, intuitive and social involvement and sensorial interactions, constituting determining factors for destination’s competitiveness. In this context, and in line with global trends, many destinations are embracing a new marketing approach, where experiences and stories are at the heart of their promotional activities.

This course, as all UNWTO.Capacity initiatives, adopts a fact-driven approach, by presenting state-of-the-art theory through the analysis of real-life case examples and in-class activities, tailored on participants’ knowledge and objectives. The modular structure is conducive of a highly interactive learning experience that blends presentations, case studies, discussions, debates and practical activities.

Mrs. Elcia Grancdcourt, Programme Director for Regional programme for Africa commented that in a time when businesses around the world are competing in highly commoditized markets, we in the tourism sector have also realized that in order to remain relevant we must explore new approaches in order to deliver the experience that our customers expect. We have to continuously be able to exceed our customers’ expectations and in order to do so we must ensure that the new ideas and concepts are shared to the stakeholders. It is in this regard that UNWTO in collaboration with THEMIS Foundation is hosting this workshop which comes at an opportune time as it aims to equip the participants on how best to make use of the new platforms that are available to the benefit of the tourism industry in their respective countries and wished them a successful workshop.