Story: Abdul Aziz
ABOUT one million football fans and tourists are expected in the country to round off the Jubilee year and usher in the Ghana 2008 football tournament.
This represents an expected growth of about 55 per cent over the arrivals in 2006 when 497,129 tourists visited the country.
Receipts from tourists in 2006 were $987 million and that figure is expected to hit a record in January 2008.
The Public Relations Manager of the Ghana Tourist Board (GTB), Mr Ben Ohene-Ayeh, who made this known, said the ministry was working closely with the Local Organising Committee (LOC) to ensure that football fans and tourists enjoyed the maximum comfort during their stay in the country.
He said rooms in Five-star to Two-star hotels had increased from 19,967 to 21,159 in the major hosting cities of Accra, Kumasi, Sekondi-Takoradi and Tamale.
He said the board was working in close collaboration with the security agencies to provide security, as well as protect the local population from sex tourists, and warned that the board would not hesitate to inform the security agencies about the hotels and brothels that would be used as sex tourist destinations.
Mr Ohene-Ayeh said the GTB was determined to ensure that tourists who visited the country carried away with them good impressions to enable them to repeat their visit to the country.
An official of the LOC said about 12,000 accredited officials, including media practitioners, were expected to cover the tournament.
Kwame Asare Boadu & George Ernest Asare report that in Kumasi the hotels are more than ready to play host to the guests.
According to officials of the hotels and the Kumasi Branch of the GTB, all the necessary measures, including improved facilities and training of hotel staff, needed to ensure quality services for guests had either been completed or were almost complete to project the image of Kumasi and Ghana as a credible host of the Ghana 2008 festival.
A visit to some of the hotels by the Daily Graphic revealed that nothing was being left to chance to project the hospitality industry using the soccer fiesta.
At the Crystal Rose Hotel at Ahodwo, massive renovations had been undertaken to give facilities there a facelift.
The Marketing Manager of the Crystal Hotel Group, Mr Enoch Takyi-Mensah, said, “We are on course to playing a leading role in Ghana 2008.”
At the recently completed Crystal Rose Hamilton Court, a new hotel from the Crystal Hotel stock, located off the Ahodwo-Daban road, everything had been neatly done, with the entire building being refurbished and freshly painted.
At the Miklin Hotel, the General Manager, Mr David Gyekye, said, “We are so ready that even if it starts tomorrow we will not be found wanting.”
Mr Gyekye said a modern gym had been developed to provide efficient services for clients, adding that “with meals, our efficient staff are poised to serve our clients with special indigenous meals, as well as Arabian cuisine, Chinese food and other continental dishes to make them feel at home”.
The Deputy Managing Director of the Cicero Guest House, Mr Ernest Ampofo, said all facilities at the hotel had been adequately renovated to the requisite standard.
He said apart from painting the hotel to give it a new look, management had also provided new furniture and expanded the terrace bar to entertain clients.
He said the GTB had built the capacity of the staff and management to enhance efficient service delivery, stressing that the guest house was also ready to meet the food requirements of its guests.
Mr Osei Kuffour Bonsu, who is the Director of Marbron Hotel, gave the assurance that with its well-trained staff and facilities, there was no way that it would fail to meet the requisite services required of it.
The Manager of Chariset Hotel, Mr Mike Landn, said apart from the modern facilities that met international standards, the members of staff of the hotel had adequately been trained by the GTB to enable them to offer the services required.
The Manager of Royal Park Hotel, Mr Jeffery Cheung, said apart from a reserve generator to provide power for the hotel in case of any power outage, the management had sourced for new supplies for the kitchen to enhance its service delivery.
“Internet facilities to enable our guests browse from every corner of the hotel are provided and continental dishes will also be served, so we have no problem,” he said.
Commenting on the preparations, the Ashanti Regional Manager of the GTB, Mr Ekow Sampson, said at least six modern hotels with more than 30 rooms each had come up in Kumasi recently, a development which was good for the Kumasi venue.
He said another training exercise would be carried out for the front-line staff of the hotels before the start of the tournament.
As the date for the kick-off gets closer, however, the scenario in Tamale appears different.
Zakaria Alhassan reports from the metropolis that it is unlikely that some of the proprietors of hospitality facilities, including those constructing new hotels, will be able to complete work before the tournament commences.
A renowned Tamale-based building contractor, Alhaji Sumani Zakari, who is working day and night to complete a Four-star hotel he is putting up at Vittin, a suburb of Tamale, was confident that he could at least complete about 60 rooms for use during the tournament.
Known as the Ganaa Hotel, the intended seven-storey facility that is supposed to contain 124 standard rooms and suites will also have a swimming pool, a tennis court, a business centre, conference halls, a penthouse, among others.
According to the Northern Regional Manager of the GTB, Mr William Ayambire, at the moment the total number of hotel rooms in the metropolis is 800.
“And because of the fear that the rooms may not be enough to accommodate the expected fans, we have gone public to appeal to residents who have decent rooms to spare to come forward for their facilities to be inspected before they hire them out,” he intimated.
The manager also welcomed the suggestion by the Tamale Metropolitan Co-ordinating Director, Alhaji Mohammed Adam Baba, that some school dormitories could be used by the fans.
Mr Ayambire, however, added that “in that case, those dormitories should be identified now so that they can be renovated in time, since most of such facilities in the schools are in a state of disrepair and, therefore, they will be unfit for use by the fans”.
As a result of the limited number of rooms, some representatives of the four teams that will be based in Tamale have began booking for available rooms at some of the hotels, such as Mariam and Gariba Lodge.
The four teams are Senegal, South Africa, Angola and Tunisia.
They, together with officials of the Confederation of African Football (CAF), will be accommodated at the newly constructed Three-star status Enhanced Hostel at the University for Development Studies Medical School in Tamale.
Others will also be housed at the newly constructed students’ hostel at the Tamale Polytechnic.
Mr Ayambire renewed his appeal to the general public to give out their decent homes and rooms for hire during the tournament.
From Takoradi, Kwame Asiedu Marfo reports that fervent preparations are underway in the Shama Ahanta East metropolis towards the successful hosting of the event in Sekondi, which is one of the four venues for the tournament.
The preparations include the improvement of the road network, effective waste management, the provision of accommodation, as well as the beautification of the Twin-City of Sekondi-Takoradi.
The provision of accommodation, however, seems to stand out as the most prominent among the preparations being made, since people, particularly football fans, who will throng the twin-city have to be accommodated.
While the government is making efforts to provide accommodation for the teams, individuals who are in the hospitality industry are also supporting the government’s effort in that direction.
Private hoteliers are either putting up new hotels or expanding existing facilities to provide more rooms for the football fans who will flood the twin-city next year January.
Some of these hotels include the Takoradi Hotels, which is working hard to provide 62 additional rooms for the visitors, and the Akroma Plaza, which is making efforts to provide about 50 rooms.
According to conservative estimates, about 50,000 football fans are expected to ‘invade’ Sekondi-Takoradi for the tournament, but the Principal Officer of the Ghana Tourist Board (GTB) in the Western Region, Mr Michael Kpingbi, puts the figure at 20,000.
Speaking to the Daily Graphic in an interview, he said there were about 1,800 hotel rooms been provided by star-rated and non-star rated hotels in the Shama Ahanta East metropolis and that the GTB had started registering private homes, hostels, as well as unoccupied bungalows and rest houses belonging to some companies, to be used as supplementary accommodation by visitors.
He said some of those supplementary facilities included the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) Hostel, the Workers College Hostel and the Ghana Telecom Guest House, adding, “We are falling on all of them to use them as accommodation by the visitors during the tournament.”
He said those supplementary facilities would also provide about 1,800 rooms, adding that 25 new hotels scheduled to be completed next year would also provide 404 rooms.
According to the principal officer of the GTB, the board, as well as the Ghana 2008 Secretariat, was registering people who had supplementary accommodation every day.
However, he said it was the duty of the GTB to inspect the facilities to know whether they were of acceptable standard.
Mr Kpingbi, however, could not tell whether there would be enough accommodation for the visitors or not, since the board was still arranging for private accommodation, while the number of fans was not certain.
He disclosed that 800 people from the hospitality industry would be trained to improve on service delivery during the tournament, explaining that 300 would come from the formal sector, comprising hotels and restaurants, while 500 would come from the informal sector, comprising chop bar and drinking bar operators, car rentals, as well as taxi drivers. All of them would undergo a six-day training programme to improve on their service delivery.
He said 100 of them were already undergoing the six-day training programme in Takoradi .
The Managing Director of the Takoradi Hotels, Nene Tetteh Kupualor Bessey I, told the Daily Graphic that he had expanded facilities, including rooms, at his Taadi Hotel Annex at Effia, near Takoradi, under phase one of the new project.
He said 32 out of the 62 rooms were completed in October this year.
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