Ghana’s airline traffic and tourist arrivals are likely to remain subdued in the short-term, albeit the country will experience stronger growth in the medium term, as the effect of the pandemic continues to fade.
Although tourist arrivals via air travel are improving gradually compared to the drastic fall after the first quarter of 2020, this is far below pre-pandemic levels. Fitch Solutions forecasts domestically registered airline take-offs to experience an average growth of 30.2 per cent. The stronger medium-term growth rate will allow for a medium-term recovery of air traffic, Fitch Solutions indicates.
Furthermore, the research firm underscores that tourist arrivals via air travel in Ghana will increase to 11, 843 in the medium term, compared with regional peers such as Namibia and Angola who will experience growth of 17,309 and 91,100 respectively.
Total Tourist Arrivals for selected Markets (2020-2025)
Based on Fitch Solutions forecast, total tourist arrivals from various ports of entry of the country will increase to close to 1.5 million arrivals within the next five years. Albeit, Ghana’s tourist arrivals is among the lowest quintile globally. This is the case, due to low airport infrastructure investments in the country compared to regional peers.
Over the past years, investments in Ghana’s airport infrastructure have been really slow, thus, only a few mention of airports of international standards in the country. Recently, the government of Ghana upgraded the Kotoka International airport in order to increase traffic volumes. While this has served the country well, increased infrastructure in the sector will improve tourist arrivals as the impact of COVID wanes.
Moreover, recent data provided by the Bank of Ghana (BoG) shows that Ghana’s tourist arrivals through the various ports in the country experienced slow growth in the first quarter of 2021.
“Tourist arrivals through the country’s various ports of entry declined in Q1 2021 when compared with figures recorded a year ago.”
According to the BoG data, a total of 98,950 tourists entered the country in the first quarter of 2021, as against 211,599 visitors received in the same period in 2020. This indicates a significant decline of 53.2 per cent.
Similarly, tourist arrivals during the period went down by 5.9 per cent when compared with 105,135 visitors received in Q4 2020.
Trends in Tourist Arrivals
Projects announced in the past five years
The National Airport System Plan, in support of by the Ministry of Transport and the Ghana Airports Company (GAC), reported that Ghana has seven airports that support commercial flights.
According to the Ministry of Aviation, in 2016 Ghana processed 1.75 million international passengers and in 2017 it projected 1.81 million as tourist arrivals. Furthermore, there were roughly 420,000 domestic passengers in 2016.
The government of Ghana stated in 2017, its ambition to build an airport in each of the country’s regions and a renewed commitment to re-establish a national airline. With all of these projects in the pipeline, Ghana will position itself to become a regional and global air traffic hub.
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