More diasporans buying homes and prospecting business opportunities - GTA

More diasporans are buying and obtaining private homes in the country, data obtained from the Ghana Tourism Authority (GTA) have indicated.

The B&FT observed out of the 914,892 international tourist arrivals last year, the 2022 tourism report has 41.18 percent of diaspora tourists lodging in their private homes against the 32 percent who lodged in hotels, 19.40 percent in guest homes, 4.41 percent in corporate homes and 3.01 percent for others.

The numbers in 2022 also show that the largest percentage of international tourists have been visiting the country for business purposes since 2018.

The GTA and International Air Travelers Survey, IATS, noted that 42.5 percent of diaspora visitors came to the country on business motivations in 2018; 32 percent in 2019; 33.7 percent in 2020; 29.7 percent in 2021; and 24.2 percent in 2022 against other key purposes – including visit, transit, holiday, conferences, studies, government/official duties, conventions, culture, health, sports and others.

International tourists’ overall positive impression of Ghana in 2022 also scored more than 70 percent, according to the report.

GTA’s Chief Executive Officer Akwasi Agyeman explained that the unveilling of key projects and initiatives – including the Year of Return, Beyond the Return, Destination Ghana and several others – are contributing to the uptick of diaspora investment opportunities in the country.

The report said the USA continues to lead inbound visitor arrivals into Ghana, accounting for some 118,369 visitors in 2022 from the 92,139 recorded in 2021.

Apart from the US heading the arrival-list, Ghana has seen more visitors from Nigeria, the UK, India, Germany and Canada in that order since 2018.

This year, Ghana is anticipating about 1.2 million international tourist arrivals – bringing an estimated revenue of some US$3.4billion into the tourism economy.

Tourism minister Dr. Ibrahim Mohammed Awal, at the 2022 tourism report launch earlier this month, said the easing of COVID-19 restrictions and resumption of international travel will expectedly lead to a surge of inbound visitor-numbers, with an overall tourism medium-term strategy to reach two million arrivals by 2025 – with not less than US$5.2billion revenue.

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