Fast Virus. Slow Growth.

Ghana and Nigeria brace for the economic nightmare ahead, even as the region’s billionaires, entrepreneurs and innovators chip in for the fight against Covid-19.

- Peace Hyde

The Labadi Beach Hotel, set amidst landscaped tropical gardens in the heart of Accra, is unusually quiet on the Tuesday morning FORBES AFRICA visits in mid-March. The usual bustle of the morning breakfast buffet frequented by the city’s elite has all but disappeared, and in its place, an air of uncertainty about the future of one of Accra’s longest-running hotels, at least in the interim.

You cannnot enter without going through the new mandatory protocols in place: hand-sanitizers, individual temperature screenings and metal detectors.

“Unfortunately, we are no longer accepting outside guests and the hotel will be closing until further notice,” says the bartender. The usually-packed lobby has only two in-house guests already scheduled to leave the hotel.

Ghana’s thriving hospitality industry was one of the first victims of the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, once President Nana Akufo-Addo banned mass gatherings and ordered the closure of airports. Hotels in the Greater Accra region closed down, sending thousands of workers home, and leaving management to contend with the challenge of paying salaries and taxes sans customers.

It’s in stark contrast to 2019, when Ghana’s international PR campaign, The Year of Return 2019, brought in an additional 237,000 visitors representing an estimated $1.9 billion into the economy, according to Barbara Oteng Gyasi, Ghana’s Minister of Tourism. Most of the money was spent on the hospitality sector with the average spend per tourist estimated to be around $2,590.