By Nancy Fowler
Encouraging others to fall in love with her native Ghana is the focus of a new business venture for Elizabeth Hammond, ’16. It’s also the professional extension of a passion she pursued as a Maryville University student. Last year, Hammond launched Regal African Travel and Tours, which offers travel packages to Ghana. She hopes the enterprise will help counteract negative or false impressions about her beloved country and its African continent.
“Some people think Africa is a country,” Hammond said. “Others may think about the Ebola outbreak, and about dictators and wars.” Hammond, who holds a Bachelor of Arts in Strategic Communication from Maryville and a Master of Arts in Strategic Communication from American University, wants to teach people about her Ghana, which she calls a “beautiful, peace-loving country.”
The education campaign began after she arrived at Maryville in 2013. As president of the African Student Organization, Hammond organized Taste of Africa and other successful, campus-wide events celebrating the continent’s array of cultures. “I think of my travel business as a new organization, but instead of for the school, it’s for the world,” Hammond said.
Regal African Travel and Tours offers a variety of packages. Tours can be customized, but typical activities include learning African dancing, weaving and mask-making. Hammond also encourages tourists to visit the coastal quarters where captives awaited shipment to the Americas during the trans-Atlantic slave trade. “It’s not just ‘let’s go see things,’” Hammond said. “It’s more of an immersive kind of experience.”
Regal primarily targets two groups of travelers: college students, who will attend classes at the University of Ghana in Accra and explore other areas on the weekends, and African American tourists. Hammond hopes that every client will return home with a new perception of her country and a new awareness of themselves. “For most African Americans, it will be a spiritual journey, a reconnection to roots, and with people that look like you,” Hammond said. “For all others, it will bring fresh perspective and insight, and they will return and tell a different story about Ghana and Africa.”