Tourism Development Fund yields Gh₵ 7m after two years of inception

The Tourism Development Fund has generated some 7 million Ghana cedis as at the middle of October, 2014.

The fund was established in October 2012 from the one percent levy on the services of tourism facilities including hotels and restaurants.

Over 2600 facilities representing about 96 percent of the licensed facilities, have so far been registered for the initiative. But the Fund Manager, Abraham Tetteh has confirmed to JOY BUSINESS, less than half of them are currently paying the levy due to some challenges with the collections which are however being addressed.

“My analysis indicates that between 40 and 45 percent of the registered and certified facilities are actually paying into the fund. My analysis indicates that we could collect more than we are currently doing but then it is because we are perhaps not going after the collectors to assess whether they are really collecting what they are expected to collect and whether they are really paying what they have collected because they are paying into the fund voluntarily. So a programme is being rolled out in order to go to the field and assess whether the establishments are charging across the revenue streams and if so are they declaring, whatever they have been collecting into the fund”

86% of the contribution was made by star rating hotels, 5% by budget hotels  and 9% by catering services.

An Average of around 350 thousand Ghana cedis is mobilized every month. Mr Tetteh adds this is expected to double soon when the challenges associated with the collection are addressed.

“There have been fluctuations in the collections because the tourism activity is basically seasonal. In January for instance, every business seems to suffer as they have to spend a lot and also want to regroup and so most of them suffer in terms of revenue generation a little bit and tourism is not an exception. The highest monthly-amount was recorded in July this year which was a little over 617 thousand Ghana cedis whilst January is the worst period.  January this year, for instance, was about a 193 thousand and a similar one was recorded in 2013 and so you can see the gap. But bear in mind that the registration is progressive so as we increase the number, it is expected that the revenue will also increase” he added.