Enhancing Disaster Risk Reduction Strategies for Sustainable Tourism Development in Cape Coast, Ghana

Cape Coast is a prominent tourism destination in Ghana, distinguished by its historical landmarks, coastal ecosystems, and cultural heritage. Yet the city faces mounting threats from environmental hazards such as coastal erosion, flooding, extreme heat, and lagoon degradation, which directly compromise the sustainability of its tourism sector. Guided by the Sustainable Tourism Development Theory (STDT) and the Tourism Resilience and Adaptation Theory (TRAT), this study investigates the impacts of these hazards on tourism development, the effectiveness of current disaster risk reduction (DRR) strategies, and the roles of key stakeholders in building sectoral resilience. Using a qualitative research design, data were collected through in-depth interviews with eighteen stakeholders comprising four policymakers, six community leaders, five tourism business operators, and three representatives from non-governmental organisations, alongside documentary analysis of four institutional reports. The study contributes to the literature by demonstrating that fragmented, reactive DRR strategies and weak stakeholder coordination undermine Cape Coast’s tourism resilience, and by showing how urban natural assets, a dimension largely neglected in existing tourism-DRR scholarship, are central to both hazard exposure and adaptive capacity. The findings call for integrated, ecosystem-based DRR frameworks that align governance mechanisms with sustainable tourism imperatives.