GTA targets renewable energy to reduce hotel costs
The Ghana Tourism Authority (GTA) is exploring innovative strategies to reduce and stabilize hotel rates by promoting the integration of renewable energy solutions—particularly solar power—within the hospitality sector.
According to GTA CEO Maame Efua Houadjeto, the authority is in talks with financial institutions to facilitate access to funding for hotels seeking to invest in sustainable energy technologies.
The move is aimed at enhancing cost-efficiency and boosting competitiveness in the tourism sector.
Maame Efua Houadjeto disclosed this during a media interaction at the launch of the GTA’s new Public-Private Partnership (PPP) Department and the introduction of its newly appointed Director of Corporate Affairs.
“Sustainable tourism is not cheap, it can be expensive because installing solar in every hotel so that the hotel rates can come down is quite an investment. We believe that we should open our doors for people to come and partner us, so that we allow the hotels to get to that level where every hotel will have a solar installation and their utility bills will come down and in doing that their rates will also come down.
“We are competing with other people in tourism and if we really want to be number one in West Africa or in Africa for that matter, we need to look at our hotel rates and our hotel rates are quite expensive now.
“We believe that solar for instance is going to help us reduce the rate. Another thing is the car rental, here we talk about sustainable tourism. We are looking at EV cars as well. We are looking at supporting the transport unit or the tour operators with EV cars and we can do that only by having a private sector partnership,” she said.
Meanwhile, Director of the Public Private Partnership Department under the Ghana Tourism Authority, Jones Nelson, has pledged to drive investment into the sector.
“It used to be a unit under the corporate affairs department and this time around, we are separating it to have a wider scope in order to meet the needs of stakeholders. We are talking about sector skills training, training of tour guides, site guides, the customer service in the hotel industry and then of course my CEO Maame Efua also mentioned the fact that we need to help them we support them technically, financially.
“So we are talking to a few banks to support them in terms of soft loans for two and a half years to be able to get some funding in the area of energy. We are talking about green house and all that green energy so they can get solar power in the various units especially the hoteliers and this can bring the rate of the hotels and other tourists and for that matter the lay person to be able to patronize their services.
“This is critical in the positive sense that we need to widen our scope now it is not limited to only the umbrella body of the Ghana Tourism Authority,” he added.
The event was also used to introduce newly appointed Director of Corporate Affairs at the Ghana Tourism Authority, Bright Asempa Tsadidey
