The new queen, Charlotte Quagraine (middle), and her two runners-up Anastsia and Flora and below, the queen and all her nine princesses
The month-long search for a Ghanaian youth ambassador for tourism ended last Saturday when 20-year-old student, Charlotte Quagraine, was crowned Miss Tourism Ghana 2010.
For the next one year pretty Charlotte, who beat 10 other beauties to pick the top prize, will lead the national effort to attract young people to the tourism sector.
She is thus, expected to roll out a programme of activities to whip up the interest of the youth in tourism, especially on the domestic front.
The first and second runners-up at Saturday’s contest; Flora Owusua Brenya, 24, and Anastasia Asante, 23, respectively, will assist the tourism queen, Charlotte, in her tourism development drive.
The fresh queen took over from last year’s winner, Gladys Twumwaa Atuobi.
As part of her prize, Charlotte will represent Ghana at this year’s Miss Tourism Queen International pageant in Guangzhou, China, in November, under the auspices of the First Royal Events Company, Kenya Airways and the Ministry of Tourism.
She drove home a fresh GW Peri car donated by Tanink plus insurance from MET Life Insurance Company Limited.
She was also ‘spread’ with goodies from Darling Hair, Printex, Ghandour, and GhC200.
The queen will also be the guest of the Zimbabwean Tourism Ministry, which is collaborating with the Ministry of Tourism, Ghana, to promote tourism in the two countries.
The runners-up, Flora and Anastsia, who received sponsors’ products and GhC150 cash each, will also visit tourism sites in Zimbabwe, as part of their prizes.
The beauties, who came fourth to 11th took away sponsors’ products and Gh¢100 each.
For an event that was in its second year, the organisers, the Miss Tourism Ghana Company, earned some commendation from patrons for keeping the National Theatre quite ‘busy’ with stirring performances by the contestants and guest artistes throughout the four-hour show.
Clad in rich traditional clothes, the contestants took turns to make presentations on the tourism products in all 10 regions of Ghana. They also performed traditional dances and songs that gave the show an authentic Ghanaian touch.
Although the show was obviously bitten badly by the ‘Ghana-time-bug’, which resulted in its late start (9pm instead of the advertised time of 7pm), the performances run quite smoothly.
In line with their objective to bring on board more young people to push Ghana’s tourism forward, the organisers gave the stage to some toddling musicians to show the world what they had to offer; and the artistes did not disappoint the patrons as they took turns to fire up the hall.
Those on the bill were The Cadence, a guitar-playing duo, who thrilled the audience with their hilarious lyrics; hiplife singer, Nelson; reggae group, Hope of Africa and Odarky Andy of TV3 Mentor fame. Kwame B of Hitz FM hosted the show.
The Minister of Tourism, Mrs Zita Sabah Okaikoi gave the assurance that, “it is the vision of the Ministry of Tourism to take the staging of Miss Tourism to another level”, where the contestants will serve as worthy ambassadors of Ghana wherever they found themselves.
The event was sponsored by Tanink Automobile Limited, Kenya Airways, Dufie Court Hotel. The other sponsors were Vega Foods, Voltic Mineral Water, Emefa Jewellery, Pink Panther Hotel (Accra & Kumasi), Silver bird Cinema, Darling Hair, Ministry of Tourism, Ghana Tourist Board and the Ghana Tourism Development Company Limited.
The rest were the Ghana Tourist Federation, Adom FM, Printex, Fiesta Royale, Mawuena Make-up and Training Centre, Indomie Noodles, American Airlines, UB Ghandour Cosmetics and Strategic Communications Limited.