The Ghana Hotels Association is threatening to increase charges by the close of the year if nothing is done about the new utility tariff increment.
According to the association, the high cost of goods and services has increased the cost of operations of their members, a situation which is negatively affecting their existence.
The Eastern Regional Chairman of the Ghana Hotels Association Dr. Akyea Darkwah in an interview with Citi News on the sidelines of the 20th general meeting and swearing-in of the new Eastern Regional executives of the association said members will be left with no option but to increase their rates to break even.
“At the beginning of this September, they increased electricity by 27 percent and then water by 21 percent. You know these are major consumable items that we use in the hotels so with these what is going to happen is that we have to increase the hotel rates, and we are going to see to that before the end of this year. Hotels rates will go high”.
“Although people are not patronizing our services, increasing the rate means that we are going to kill the industry. So with regard to some of these things, I think when the government wants to encourage the set-up of such organizations and their growth, the government should consider, or the regulatory body should consider that we pay something that can give us the leverage to make sure that we do this business, so that we get little on it.”
The National President of the Ghana Hotels Association, Dr. Edward Nyameke Ackah, while relating his frustrations to Citi News, said the hotels may assess the impact first before passing it on to clients.
“I know that hotels are not too trigger-happy when it comes to adjusting rates because our clients or guests are very cost sensitive or price sensitive. So what they will be doing is looking at the actual impact of the adjusted rate because it’s not only in the extra money they are going to pay for power and water but it’s about the ripple effect of the adjustment in the utilities. If you take a hotel that outsources laundry, it means that the laundry companies are also going to adjust their rates so there will be serval rates adjustment because of this singular adjustment in utilities”.
He added: “so the hotels will have to take a look at these carefully so they will cushion what they can cushion but if they are unable to cushion within some margin of their profits then they will have to pass it on to their guest.”
