The former Chief Executive Officer of Africa World Airlines, Sean Mendis, has revealed that, the aviation sector in Ghana has numerous opportunities at its disposal due to a surge in its traffic numbers.
According to him, the future of the aviation sector in relation to the domestic space in spite of the pandemic, has witnessed a tremendous surge in the bustling of its market as compared with other countries who are still battling with high Covid cases and other restrictions.
“I think a lot of markets which traditionally have not provided tourists, which mainly provided visiting friends and relatives diaspora traffic to Ghana will start considering Africa and Ghana in particular for the summer holidays, primarily because the traditional vacation markets they’ve had such as Europe and Asia are still seeing border closures and heavy infections from Covid. African markets have Covid which is a lot less endemic than in these markets and the borders in Africa are conditionally opened.
“So, I think there is tremendous opportunity right now for Africa in general, but for places like Ghana which have established programmes like Year of Return and Beyond The Return, to really take advantage of this opportunity. It’s one in a generation opportunity to leap ahead and establish Ghana and Africa as a top tier tourism destination”.
Commenting on the growth in air travels in 2021, the aviation expert posited that, the domestic capacity in December 2020, is projected to be higher than the previous year and as such, it is commendable feat.
“Well I think the aviation sector in Ghana has handled the Covid pandemic as good as or better than anyone in the world. We’ve seen a steady rebound in traffic number since Ghana restarted aviation operations in May and that steady growth has been month by month; you see airlines having capacity… you see expansion of operating hours at the airport.
“I would definitely say that domestic travel in Ghana has fully recovered from Covid and it’s probably one of the few, if not the only country in the world to have done that. But this could potentially be due to election stimulation. We’ve seen a similar trend in 2008, 2012 and 2016 where in an election year, the fourth quarter has seen growth in domestic travel.”
On his part, the President of the Ghana Hoteliers Association, Dr. Ackah Nyamekeh, intimated that, although the Association is recovering from the impact of the pandemic, it has been painfully slow.
“I must say to some extent, the industry is recovering although it’s at quite a slow pace. In the heat of the pandemic, a lot of people put their activities on hold, so, with the easing of the restrictions, these activities are being implemented now. So, yes, there’s been some improvement but certainly not to the level we had at the same time last year”.
Touching on the measures the Association is implementing to reposition itself and ensure members benefit from it in 2021, Mr. Nyamekeh believes that a collaboration with tour operators along with “intensive marketing” will help them.
“The bottom line of our business has to do with the movement of people; the industry thrives on the movement of people. So long as that one is established and it’s going on well, then the second aspect is what we as an industry would have to do and basically, that has to do with marketing, partnership with other players in the industry, for instance the tour operators.
“But we shouldn’t also forget the economic environment that will we are operating in. The economic environment is very important; talking about utility, taxes… so once they are all in place, we are ready to do business, we are ready to host people in our facilities”.
