Ghana's hotels and guesthouses are primarily filled by domestic travellers, with a small fraction of foreign visitors staying longer, according to the Ghana Statistical Service's Accommodation Unit Survey. The survey, covering November 2024 to February 2025, found that foreign guests made up less than 2 percent of total accommodation traffic nationwide. Monthly numbers of foreign guests stayed below 40,000 throughout the four-month period. In contrast, domestic guests ranged from about 1.87 million to 2.17 million per month.
Despite their small numbers, foreign guests generally stayed longer than domestic counterparts. The survey found that foreign hotel guests stayed roughly three to four nights on average, compared with about two nights for domestic hotel guests. This gap is significant because the length of stay affects how much money flows into the economy. Longer stays create more opportunities for spending on food, transport, entertainment, and other tourism-linked services beyond the initial room booking.
The GSS emphasized that measuring tourism performance purely by visitor volume risks understating the sector's true economic contribution. The agency noted that longer stays by foreign visitors can bring more lucrative revenue. However, domestic travel remains the backbone of Ghana's accommodation sector. The sheer volume of domestic travellers makes them an important market, and the GSS encouraged accommodation providers to design packages tailored to domestic travel patterns.
The GSS suggested that accommodation providers, tour operators, and destination managers should focus on domestic demand without neglecting international visitors. Domestic travellers provide bulk volume, while foreign visitors bring longer and potentially more lucrative stays. The agency's findings highlight the importance of understanding the distinct roles of domestic and foreign visitors in Ghana's tourism sector.
The national breakdown follows recent reporting on regional occupancy divides, highlighting sharp variations across the country. The new figures add a national layer to this picture, showing a stark gap between the number of guests and their length of stay. This gap has significant implications for the tourism sector and the broader economy.
The Accommodation Unit Survey is part of Ghana's first nationally representative longitudinal study of short-stay accommodation activity. The study captures both licensed and unlicensed establishments, tracking capacity, occupancy, guest activity, and financial performance. The GSS has cautioned that the current figures should be treated as an early baseline rather than a firm long-term trend.
For hoteliers, tour operators, and policymakers, the figures suggest that boosting tourism earnings may depend on encouraging both domestic and foreign guests to extend their stays. The GSS has not provided a further timeline for the release of additional survey results. The findings reported so far highlight the need for a more nuanced understanding of Ghana's tourism sector and its economic contribution.
Key points
- Foreign visitors make up less than 2 percent of Ghana's hotel traffic but stay nearly twice as long as domestic guests.
