Gov't blamed for high hotel room rates

The National president of the Ghana Hotels Association, Nana Adjei Twini I, has described Ghana as an expensive destination for tourists in the west African sub region because of the high hotel room rate being charged by hoteliers operating in the country.

Nana Twini however blamed the government for this unfortunate situation because most of the levies imposed on hoteliers in the country by its agencies are always so high that, they also have to increase their room rates in order to recoup their investment.

Speaking at the 4th annual general meeting of the association at Takoradi last Friday, Nana Twini said operators in the hotel industry are very much worried about the numerous levies and fees charged by the assemblies and other bodies.

According to him, the hoteliers have complained several times about these levies and fees but have not received any positive response. Instead, the agencies year in and out have kept on increasing the levies sometimes as high as 200%.

He mentioned operational license fees by the assemblies, directional sign post fees by the assemblies, Sanitation fees, Ghana Tourist Board license fees, copyright fees by the copyright society of Ghana and property rates by the assemblies as some of the levies that are arbitrary increased by these agencies.

Nana Twini understood that the aforementioned are legal fees. However, his bone of contention was how the assessment was done before arriving at the figure.

He added that the assemblies use the hotel building and its facilities to charge property rates without considering the turnover and expenditure of the hotel.

He said a particular hotel in the country was forced to pay an astronornical rate of ?245 million as property rate for a year.

These fees, coupled with high utility bills, especially electricity which is a major component of our service delivery, leave the hotel with no other choice but to come out with high rates on rooms and other services provided, thus making Ghana an expensive destination in the West Africa sub region which is not good for both our domestic and international tourism promotion, he said.

Nana Twini also expressed concern about the way government agencies and departments delayed payment of hotel bills submitted to them for months or even a year before they are settled but turn round to force hoteliers to pay VAT element on the amount owed after one month or be slapped with a penalty of ?1 million.

The president continued that when these government departments and agencies are submitting bills to the hoteliers after a long delay, they deduct 7.5% as with holding tax. This, he noted, did not promote the growth of business and therefore appealed to the government to do something about it to save the hotel industry.

Nana Twini also appealed to the government to prevail upon all the metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies to negotiate all levies with them before they are finally implemented as the copy right society and the Ghana Tourist Board is currently doing.

We think this would help to make hotel rates and services much more affordable, he added.

Nana Twini also announced that his association was working in collaboration with commercial market strategies to source funding from Ghana Aids Commission for prevention and control of HIV/AIDS in the hotel industry.

He also used the occasion to state that the association fully supports the National Health insurance scheme since its implementation would help