So Ghana’s year of return happens to be one of the best things that has happened to Ghana. But there is a downturn. Many African Americans are going back to America after realizing that there were not enough amenities to have the best life. What’s worse is that because they were bringing dollars into the country, real estate developers, marketers, and everyone increased their prices to smile to the bank.
Unfortunately, the high cost meant serious inflation which most Ghanaians can’t keep up with. Because of the high inflation, Accra is one of the most expensive cities to live in. Due to high inflation, consumer purchasing power dropped such that it affected the cedis. This is the situation on ground. This was unavoidable. Worse still, most of the dollars brought in is used to import most of what the country consumes and service their huge debt, so the money doesn’t directly benefit the average Ghanaian.
If a city or country has cheaper and more affordable commodities, it means productivity is high. Tourism brings in a lot of foreign exchange. But to be a tourist nation is hard work and serious investment. Ask Egypt 🇪🇬 Kenya 🇰🇪 Morocco 🇲🇦 and South Africa 🇿🇦 what it takes. All these countries mentioned have functional modern rail lines, Ghana doesn’t. These countries have more hotels, resorts, malls, parks etc.
You can’t ask people to troop to your country when the infrastructure isn’t there. Lagos as a city attracts more tourists because apart from trains, it has BRTs which isn’t present in Ghana. Lagos has more 5-star and 3-star hotels. I used Lagos as a reference because Lagos and Ghana have about the same population. Ghana has a GDP of roughly $73 billion, while Lagos has a GDP of $210 billion. Ghana needs to have a plan, a well-detailed master plan to get the tourism sector working.
– Culled from Top10allthingsafrica
