Ghana lacks hotel rooms -Tourism Expert

Ho, July 7, GNA - Ghana currently needs about 20, OOO hotel rooms to be able to host the number of tourists expected in the country at a given period, Mr. Frank Kofigah, Head of Planning and Development at the Ghana Tourists Board said on Friday.

He said, currently, there are only 7,000 hotel rooms in the country and these include hotels in remote villages. Mr. Kofigah made the observation at the beginning of a three-day working tour to eco-tourism sites in the Volta Region.

He said in Ghana the hotel with the highest number of rooms had about 200 rooms while in other countries a hotel could have about 50,000 rooms.

"If we have even a thousand visitors at one point in time we will have to beg to use private accommodation."

The tour organized by the Ghana Tourists Board for members of the Parliamentary Select Committee of Trade and Tourism will take the Members of Parliament to selected tourist sites in the Volta Region. The itinerary for the tour includes a visit to Tafi Atome Monkey Sanctuary, Liate-Wote Eco Tourism sites, Wli Waterfalls, Kpando Tokor grotto and Kpetoe Kente village, Other places to be visited are Keta, Atokor Slave market, Vume pottery and Cisneros ostrich farm. The Members, on the first day of the trip stopped over at Shai Hill to visit the caves and describbed the scenes as interesting and exciting. Mrs. Alice Boon, Member of Parliament for Lambussie and Deputy ranking member of the group expressed gratitude to the Ghana Tourists Board for such a trip. She pledged the committee's continual support for tourism development in the country.