Female Entrepreneurship in the Tourism Industry: A Ghanaian Outlook

The growth of the tourism sector in Ghana has presented several entrepreneurial opportunities for female entrepreneurs especially. Globally, entrepreneurship is evident in tourism, primarily receiving policy support and donor-assisted funding in developing countries. Regardless, understanding female entrepreneurship’s role in tourism development is mainly limited in academic discourse. This chapter explores female entrepreneurs’ role in developing Ghana’s tourism sector in line with Prosser’s Tourism Environment Framework. It uses a qualitative hermeneutic phenomenology research approach. The chapter reveals that female tourism entrepreneurs’ activities are predominantly evident in the catering, crafts, and arts sub-sectors. On the other hand, they could be more active in transportation, communication, information, and other economy sub-sectors. The chapter recommends that female entrepreneurs be motivated to venture into the identified ignored sectors to take advantage of the opportunities in these sub-sectors. Also, funding opportunities should be offered to female entrepreneurs to enable them to operate in capital-intensive sub-sectors of the tourism industry, as the critical limiting factor has been funding.