Prof. Kobby Mensah

Kobby Mensah is the Acting Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Tourism Development Company Ltd (GTDC), the commercial arm of the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Creative Arts of Ghana. Kobby is an Associate Professor of Marketing at the Department of Marketing and Entrepreneurship, University of Ghana Business School. His areas of expertise include Tourism Marketing and Political Marketing. Kobby serves as the Coordinator for the Marketing and Communications unit of UGBS and has been in this position for close to 10 years, managing and maintaining a strong UGBS brand.

Kobby’s agility in introducing new ways of doing things led to the establishment of the Destination Legon Tourism Marketing Exhibition project in 2013 and pioneered virtual tourism in Ghana. Destination Legon is a practice-based part of the Hospitality and Tourism Marketing course and challenges students to practically conceptualise and market destinations, attractions and tourism-related products and services to meet demands. Currently in its 10^th edition, the last edition held tasked students to use digital channels such as Virtual Reality (VR) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to effectively make a prospective tourist arrival ‘consume’ the destination/attraction before they eventually participate in them physically, creating a sense of tourism product and service trials, and therefore offering an augmented experience. Kobby Mensah is one of the leading academic voices in Tourism. He recently spoke on Technology and MICE at the just-ended Meetings Africa in Johannesburg. Previous platforms are the African Tourism Leadership Forum (ATLF), South Africa, Ghana Economic Forum, Accra. Kobby has been a regular resource to Brand South Africa and the University of South Africa (UNISA), offering insight on Pan African brand identity.

Kobby is an ardent follower of innovation and has since created six software solutions under his Ambition Consult Ltd company. Notable amongst his innovations are Focas Customer Services and Queue Management, deployed by Absa Bank, Fidelity Bank, St. John’s Hospital, Finney Hospital and Platinum Bay Hotel; and Admissions Checker, an online-based University Admissions solution for Senior High Secondary School students and Baobab Simulations for teaching and learning.