Ministry, partners to build low budget hotels
To provide affordable accommodation to people who patronise the country’s tourist attractions, the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture is partnering private investors to put up a chain of hotels across the country – the Akwaaba Hotels.
The hotels, conceptualised with the low-budget tourist in mind, especially Ghanaian domestic tourists, will also be eco-friendly.
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According to the Sector Minister, Mrs Catherine Abelema Afeku, the concept will reflect in the cost of construction, adding that the hotels will be built with “relatively inexpensive but durable locally available construction materials”.
Mrs Afeku, speaking with The Mirror in an exclusive interview in Accra, said the hotels would be furnished and equipped to reflect Ghanaian architecture.
She stated that the project would be funded under a public-private partnership arrangement, under which the Government of Ghana, through the Ghana Tourist
Development Company Limited, will use the land as equity, while the private sector investor provides the funds for the actual construction.
“We have done the drawings and completed the feasibility studies. We’ve actually got investors – Ghanaians and foreigners - who have shown interest.
“Indeed, some of the investors have gone as far as specifying which regions they want their Akwaaba Hotels to be sited. So far, their preferences favour the Northern, Ashanti, Central and Western regions. They’ve gone far in terms of inking the terms of land ownership agreement with the allodial (land) owners,” the minister said.
High cost of accommodation has been identified by previous adminstrations as a factor inhibiting the successful development and promotion of domestic tourism in Ghana.
It is the reason for low patronage of the tourist attractions. That and the lack of other receptive facilities also explain why most domestic tourists only undertake day trips, with the result that the local communities do not benefit economically since the tourists spend only a few hours at any site.
“All that is about to change,” Mrs Afeku declared, very certain that “these will happen this year”.
