Ghana’s accommodation sector recorded a significant decline in revenue generated from available rooms between November 2024 and January 2025, despite the industry maintaining substantial room capacity, the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) has disclosed.

The Service’s Accommodation Unit Survey shows that national Revenue per Available Room (RevPAR) fell from GH¢603 in November 2024 to GH¢490 in January 2025, representing a decline of about 19%.

RevPAR measures the revenue generated from available rooms and provides an indication of how effectively accommodation businesses are converting their room capacity into revenue.

The decline came as national room occupancy also weakened, falling from 46.6% in December 2024 to 44.1% in January 2025.

Average Daily Rate (ADR), which measures the average price paid for occupied rooms, also declined from GH¢1,351 in November to GH¢1,112 in January.

However, the sector recorded a modest recovery in February, with RevPAR rising to GH¢524.

The GSS says the figures demonstrate that accommodation performance depends on both room prices and occupancy, noting that high prices do not necessarily translate into strong revenue performance when a significant proportion of available rooms remains unoccupied.

Greater Accra leads revenue generation

Greater Accra recorded the highest RevPAR among the regions throughout the four-month period.

Its RevPAR stood at GH¢1,165 in November 2024 before falling to GH¢852 in January 2025 and recovering to GH¢935 in February.

The region also recorded the highest Average Daily Rate during the period.

The findings come despite the accommodation industry having considerable unused capacity.

Available room capacity remained between approximately 5.0 million and 5.2 million room-nights from November 2024 to January 2025, while occupied rooms ranged between 2.25 million and 2.42 million during the same period.

In February, available capacity declined to 4.69 million room-nights, while occupied rooms fell to 2.10 million.

 GSS calls for focus on utilisation

The GSS says the evidence suggests the central challenge for the accommodation industry is not simply adding more rooms, but improving the utilisation of existing capacity.

It recommends that tourism authorities and businesses pay closer attention to occupancy, pricing, RevPAR, guest mix and length of stay when making investment and operational decisions.

For areas with low utilisation, the Service says factors such as destination attractiveness, accessibility, infrastructure, marketing and service quality need to be examined.

The report cautions that the results cover only four months of a 12-month data collection programme and should therefore be treated as an emerging baseline rather than evidence of long-term trends.