Tourism: The Hotel Industry in Ghana and Accra by Sajid Khan of Tang Palace Hotel

Sajid Khan, General Manager at Tang Palace Hotel, shares his assessment of the hotel industry in Ghana and Accra, and explains what is the competitive environment.

“The hotel industry is quite competitive and you really cannot take it for granted that you will get business. Even those hotels that in the last 20 to 25 years have been very well located should not take the guests for granted or their business for granted. As general manager of three-to five-star hotels, we are very interactive. We meet very often, we discuss our challenges. In my own property, I have to make sure that we have good business, know who our clients are, what our market is, if we are an international brand or not, and how we get our fair share not only for food, beverage and rooms, but also for conferencing. We divide our business into three segments: rooms are the core business, complementing food and beverage outlets, but there is also a big business in conference and banqueting”, says Sajid Khan.

“Definitely, more hotels may come and we will still feel the need for more rooms. I could be wrong, I do not have the correct statistics, but the people coming into Ghana seem to be more business people, not tourists. We happen to be a business hotel as well. We cannot say if there is a growth in tourism or not, but in the last ten years, we had more available rooms in four and five-star hotels and still, there was demand. Now, guests are going into smaller and lower star hotels because there is no availability in the four and five-star hotels. There is a demand for people in the hotel rooms and for more hotels themselves. There will not be a problem when this happens”, he adds.

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