Greater Accra Regional Chairman of the Ghana Hotels Association, Benjamin Afunya, has disclosed that COVID-19 has adversely affected the fortunes of hotels nationwide.
According to him, all hotels had to close down when the COVID-19 pandemic hit the country per the President’s instruction. This was to ensure the safety of Ghanaians but in the process forced business to suspend their operations.
Talking to Doctar Cann on Happy 98.9 FM’s Showbiz Xtra he said, “Some hotels have been closed down since last year and have still not opened for business. In our line of work, one can only be in business if they have about 70% to 80% occupancy rate. That is the sure way to make profit and sadly, we weren’t making any”.
He stated that this pushed management to make a decision to lay off a majority of their workers, keeping only a few for emergencies.
“A few of them too were asked to work from home and we kept a few people. So basically, we were left with a few staff to just manage the place for us”, he repeated.
He went on to say that apart from people coming in for accommodation, which has come to a halt, conferences were also another area they were counting on. “But most conferences are now held on Zoom so this also affected us”.
Benjamin disclosed that although they did not like the idea of closing shop, they had no choice because “There were a lot of things we didn’t prepare for like making PPE’s available on our premises. And because we had no customers coming in, our overhead expenses kept going up so we just had to close down”.
He however shared that so far, business is gradually picking up. “As we speak, I hear there’s a new variant which is still putting fear into people. Currently I’ll say we’re doing about 30 to 40% and God is still our helper”.
By: Gyamfuah Owusu-Ackom