Ghana’s tourism and hospitality industry has lost a whopping US$171m due to the effects of the novel coronavirus pandemic on the industry.

According to Minister of Tourism, Culture and Creative Arts, Barbara Oteng-Gyasi, an initial assessment of the loss from March to June 2020 revealed this amount, owing to the lack of operations.

She also noted that a further assessment will be done to ascertain the full impact of Covid-19 on the sector.

Speaking at a Ministry of Information press conference today, she indicated that the effect may be minimized as the government will provide some support for some key players in the industry.

She also announced that her ministry was working to improve domestic tourism with its ‘see Ghana wear Ghana, feel Ghana’ agenda.

Meanwhile, the ministry today announced the easing of restrictions in the sector, as hotels, restaurants and tourist sites will be allowed to operate under strict Covid-19 regulation.

She said “we are working on a programme to improve domestic tourism because our borders are closed, there isn’t going to be more incoming international travel during this period. We don’t anticipate any significant improvement in international travel until the end of this year.”

“So for this year, our agenda is to improve domestic tourism. We believe that Ghanaians will buy into it and let us travel to see and fall in love with our country.”

On the financial impact on the industry, she revealed: “the initial assessment that we undertook indicated that for the first four months between March and June 2020, we are going to have a loss of about 171million dollars registered to the industry because of the lack of operation of the industry.”

“As we go forward and we do further assessment we can analyse the full impact of Covid-19 on the sector. As government gives support we may be able to miniseries this effect to some extent,” she added.