Impact of covid-19 pandemic on the hotel industry. a case study of some selected hotels in Kumasi Metropolis

Abstract

The outbreak and spread of COVID 19 has affected the hotel industry most. The extension of the restrictive measures, coupled with future uncertainties further deepen the woes of hotel industry in Ghana. The study aimed at assessing the impact of Covid-19 pandemic on the performance of hotel industry in Kumasi Metropolis. Descriptive survey design was adopted. Simple random and purposive sampling techniques were used to select 384 management staff from forty-eight (48) sampled hotels within the Kumasi Metropolis. Questionnaire was used to gather data from the respondents. The finding showed that the emergence and spread of the COVID-19 pandemic has extremely reduce the occupancy rate of the hotels in Ghana from 89.0% to 41.0% representing 48.0% reduction from 2017 to 2021. The study revealed that COVID-19 pandemic has slow down the promotion and sales of the hotel product, reduce the renting accommodation capacities to travellers, and poorly management of staff schedule. It was evident that the emergence and spread of COVID 19 pandemic has brought about a negative significant change with regard to profitability of the hotel in terms of accommodation by 45.3%, restaurant by 43.7%, and the bar by 64.9% from 2017 to 2021. The study concluded that the spread of COVID 19 had a negative effect on the operational performance of the hotel industries in the Kumasi Metropolis. It was recommended that the government of Ghana should provide financial policies in supporting production and operation of the hotel industry. Policies and measures such as the “tax exemption, reduction, postponement, return and compensation”, will substantially lower production costs for the hotels, and help them to survive the difficult period of production and operation, while gradually returning to normal business operations.