AFRICA IN FOCUS >> Coming up on 26 August, 2014:The Hotel Industry in Ghana & Africa: Challenges; Prospects; and the Future

The Hotel Industry in Ghana & Africa: Challenges; Prospects; and the Future

Even before the Ebola crisis took root in the fears of Ghanaians, AIF had already put together what would become a package of stories dealing with the tourism sector in Africa. One may recall that in one of our July editions, we touched on the role of the African Union and the UN World Tourism Organisation in promoting tourism as an important element in reducing poverty in Africa.

 To this end, the two institutions had, in July, signed a MoU to help realize this. The 27 July edition of Africa in Focus, which focused on the Forestry Sector and matters arising on Eco-Tourism, kick-started the first of a series of programmes that seek to shed light on different aspects of tourism.

On 19 August, we looked at the Aviation sector as another equally-important aspect of supporting and developing the tourism sector.

Unbeknownst to many, on 3 July, 1991, ECOWAS adopted a programme of activities for tourism. As far back as that time, ECOWAS recognized the need to encourage and facilitate the joint promotion of tourism products in West Africa. It sought to coordinate tourism development activities in Member States. Finally, aware of the necessity to “create and maintain a high standard for tourism in the sub-region and thereby boost the flow of tourists to the Member States”, ECOWAS adopted, in 1999, a standards for classification of hotels, motels and guest inns.

For the purposes of this discussion, we will use the ECOWAS definition, which defines a hotel or any similar establishment catering for the tourist trade, in the following way: “an establishment providing sleeping accommodation to the public by way of trade or business, such accommodation being payable on a daily basis, or in the case of a longer period of occupancy, payable weekly or monthly, provided…the occupant is not permanently resident therein. The establishment may provide restaurant facilities and may be open for business either all year round or seasonally.”

In this edition of AIF, which is our 15^th edition, we will be shedding light on the hospitality sector, with a special focus on hotels, in Ghana, and Africa.

We will be asking very important questions about why hotel prices are so high in countries like Ghana? How does it compare to countries like Rwanda, where there is greater sanity in the tourism sector? In addition, we will be asking what can be done by the hotel industry to improve customer satisfaction for its clients. Finally, in the light of the Ebola virus, what measures are hotels taking to assure customers they are ready to confront the scare head-on for their clients? We will conclude the show having examined the impact of the three-month ban of international conferences on the hotel industry in Ghana, with a discussion on how to bring sanity into the sector in the light of the current turbulence.

Guests in the studio:

Ø  Kwaku Ayeh Akuffo, Head, Sales & Marketing, MJ Grand Hotel

Ø  Siisi Baidoo, Sales Executive, Tulip Inn Hotel

On the line

Ø  Richard Baafi-Duah, Manager, Manna Heights Hotel, Central Region, Ghana @13h50

Ø  Emmanuel Werabe , Tourism Quality and Standards Manager, Department of Tourism and Conservation, Rwanda Development Board @14h05

Tune in at 13h10 GMT (1:00pm Ghana Time). We’re also streaming live  www.radioxyzonline.com.

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