Nigerians spend huge resources to travel to different parts of the world on holidays, repatriating millions on foreign exchange out of Nigeria, but there lie beautiful tourism destinations in West Africa where Nigerians and others can have a quiet time in an ambiance close to nature, writes Chinedu Eze who was part of the media team that accompanied tour operators to travel by road to attend Accra Weizo, a travel expo in Ghana

Tourism experts are of the view that if Nigerians can spend a quarter of what they spend in Dubai in West Africa, patronising the beautiful resorts, hotels and enchanted natural destinations, many lives in the sub-region would be empowered. Records indicate that in 2023 Nigerians spent about $2 billion in Dubai tourism, including investments in real estate.

Brooking through the barriers of race, West Africans travel to Europe and America to spend their money, where they are made to answer many questions in public places, they leave the paradise located in many places in West Africa to spend their money amidst suspicious glare of hostile security operatives.

One of such beautiful havens in West Africa is Royal Senchi Resort Hotel, a beautiful resort located at Akosombo, Ghana. Royal Senchi is idyllic, carved out of the undulating hills of Akosombo with a lake, cruise boats and woods. The resort is breathtaking. It is a reality of what was captured in romantic poems of the past. Why go to the Caribbean for honeymoon when Royal Senchi, a paradise in West Africa can be accessed by road.

High Cost of Fares

Since after COVID-19, air travel has become costly, made worse by the trapped funds, which aggravated the avarice of foreign airlines operating in Nigeria. The depreciation of the naira, the lack of confidence in the volatile economy, has made air travel a very costly venture. The cost of air travel has reduced passenger traffic both in domestic and international travel.

This is why at the 7th Accra Weizo, a travel expo in West Africa, tour operators decided to travel from Nigeria to Ghana by road to see how seamless moving through the countries in the sub-region could be. Economic Community of West Africa (ECOWAS) conceived the sub-region as a domestic market. But each country in West Africa is yet to embrace that ideal conception. So, they made road travel cumbersome at the borders.

But travelling by road revealed the beauty of West Africa: many hospitality facilities dot the edges of the Atlantic Ocean and beyond. Royal Senchi Resort Hotel could be a revelation to those who are yet to know about the beauty of man’s imagination and nature.

Barriers to Seamless Travel

THISDAY spoke to the Executive Director, Royal Senchi Resort, Akosombo, Ghana, Mr. Nana Kwame Yeboah-Afari, who gave insight to the barriers to seamless travel in West Africa and the need to promote trade and closer interaction among the people of the sub-region.

Speaking about the resort, Yeboah-Afari said maintaining such inimitable facility would need a lot of commitment and money.

“First, it costs money to keep up the facilities at the resort; proper maintenance of 35 acres of land is not a joke, but we will continue to do this and I want to appeal to you to help us through your various platforms to enhance the marketing of our products,” he said.

Talking about inhibition to trade and interaction in West Africa, the Managing Director recalled the recent observation made by the Nigerian billionaire businessman, Aliko Dangote, about how tough it is to move around in Africa.

“Just recently, Alhaji Aliko Dangote complained about the challenges of flying within Africa. The fact remains that he is not alone in this challenge. Visa issue on the continent is a major constraint and the crisis at the border also calls for concerns. This is not good enough for Africa if we want to promote tourism. I have had a lot of experiences going through various borders like Togo, Cote D’Ivoire and others. What I can say is that it is not pleasant. If you have money to throw around, you go through the borders easily, but for day-to-day people, it’s very difficult to navigate this,” he said.

Yeboah-Afari observed that it is always good to see collaboration within Africa “and I say this with a lot of passion because too often, we see a lot of competition among us when we should have collaborated and made our products bigger.”

“If we collaborate, it would still be enough for everybody. It is in our collective interest to put together our resources to be able to host large meetings.But, sometimes, we see ourselves as competitors to the extent that we don’t want to share anything at all. There are a lot of things that we can do together; we can do cross training, menus, bushmeat and others just to keep the interest going. The Southern African countries collaborate very well and they don’t see themselves as competitors,” he said.

Visitors

About the visit to the beautiful report by guests, he disclosed that about 80 per cent of the people who patronize the resort are Africans.

“Presently, we have about 80 per cent of Africans patronising our resort. About 60 per cent of that 80 per cent are Ghanaians, 40 per cent are other African countries and I would say that 80 per cent of that 40 per cent are Nigerians. In recent times, we have had a lot of visitors from Togo as well, especially their corporate organisations do come here for different activities,” Yeboah-Afari said.

On partnership with airlines and tour operators, he said, “The fact remains that you cannot do this kind of a business without partnering with others. So, we have relationships especially with many of the travel and tours companies in Ghana. The truth is, you have to first and foremost start your relationship from home. The next place we are doing this is Nigeria. You cannot do anything on this continent without the involvement of Nigeria.

“On airlines’ collaboration, not much has been done because the airlines are often interested in cities, but in terms of presence on the airlines, talking about inflight magazines, internal marketing with the airlines, we do that regularly. We also did the same with Arik Air until the airline stopped flying to Ghana. The biggest airline out of Nigeria to Ghana now is Air Peace. We will need to collaborate with the airline as well,” the Managing Director added.

The management of Royal Senchi Hotel Resort spoke about waste management and how eco-friendly the facility is, which makes it a top-notch destination in West Africa.

Managing waste and maintaining echo-friendly nature of the resort is a very challenging thing, but we have managed to work around it. Just imagine about 150-200 toilets flushing at the same time; it is a big issue. So, what we have designed is that everything comes to the treatment plant and it becomes liquid and passes through our irrigation system to irrigate the 35 acres that we have here.

“We also have the technology for water treatment and this is highly efficient and also eco-friendly. The water is taken from the lake here and it runs through the system. Also, for the water hitting equipment, we have a gas that is used to hit the water, while the backup is solar energy. We ensure that if you open your taps and you need hot water, within 10 to 15 seconds, you will have what you want. It’s all about solar and gas. We also have a solar farm here, which provides about 10 per cent of energy here,” he said.

Cost of Doing Business

The Managing Director also spoke on the cost of doing business in Ghana, which also applies to Nigeria.

“The fact is that doing business in Ghana, the costs of operations are so high unlike in other places. We import poultry products from Brazil, dairy products from Holland and other places; rice is also imported from Nigeria. That is a tragedy as far as I am concerned because if you go across this place, all the lands here are good for planting rice.

“We are always challenged on so many fronts. If we compare ourselves to people from Kenya, Mauritius, South Africa or Botswana and other places like that, their cost of operation is low. They can afford to charge some rates, but we cannot do that here.When we first started about a decade ago, our ultimate plan was to have a group of Senchi all over West Africa, but 10 years on, I don’t think the plan is still on; unless things change drastically. Some of these products are what we can do if we have the will, which is lacking at the moment,” he said.

On effective security and preventing the circulation of drugs and other illicit substances, Yeboah-Afari explained that has effective security management system in place to prevent such bad occurrences, “but you can understand that there is a limit you can go about this because these are being carried out by your own guests who bring in a lot of people and substances. As much as possible, it is not a problem here because we always do the needful when such arises. I don’t see it as a major issue like we have in Accra and other places.

The team for the Accra Weizo, on June 28, 2024, cruised in the lake and beheld the beauty of Royal Senchi Resort Hotel, which is the beauty that dwells in Africa, at Akosombo, Ghana.

Quote:

“Visa issue on the continent is a major constraint and the crisis at the border also calls for concern. This is not good enough for Africa if we want to promote tourism.”