7,094 visitors in for Ghana 2008

Page 24: January 25, 2008.
Story: Albert K. Salia & Timothy Gobah
AGAINST the post-tournament projection that one million football fans will visit Ghana for the 26th Africa Cup of Nations, immigration officials have so far recorded only 7,094 tourists in connection with the tournament.
The data was for the period January 12 to 23, 2008.
Officialdom, however, believe that as the games progress, many more fans will arrive. That, they explain, is because many people cannot afford the cost of staying throughout the three-week tournament and will, therefore, wait for the knock-out stages.
It has also been established that Ivorian fans were making return trips on match days involving their national team.
Nigerian football fans had earlier indicated that they were coming with a contingent of 500,000 but less than 1,000 of them have arrived so far.
The Controller of Immigration in charge of Operations, Mr Laud Ofori Affrifah, told the Daily Graphic in an interview yesterday that following the media hype and projected arrivals for the tournament, the Ghana Immigration Service (GIS) put in place the necessary structures and staff to facilitate the arrival of the fans.
He said 1,000 officers of the GIS were massed up for the operation, with the establishment of clearance zones at the officially designated entry points at the Kotoka International Airport (KIA) and the Aflao, Elubo and Paga borders.
He said a special games manifest was also designed for people coming in specifically for the games to facilitate their swift entry and also not to impede normal traffic flow at the borders.
Giving details of the number of people who came in for the games, Mr Affrifah said the KIA recorded 2,546; Elubo, 1815; Aflao, 1772; Paga, 767; Tamale, 102; Gonokrom, 80, and Half Assini, 12.
He said out of the 1,815 fans who entered the country through Elubo, 1,420 were Ivorian nationals and they returned after their match against Nigeria, along with 76 Guineans.
Mr Affrifah said 506 Malian and 259 Senegalese fans came in through Paga, with 627 Nigerians, 681 Beninois, 325 Guineans and 41 Malians coming in through the Aflao border.
He said 233 Angolan fans, 233 Nigerians, 265 Camerounians, 159 Guineans, 100 Egyptians, 118 Sudanese, 69 South Africans and 85 Moroccans came in through the KIA.
He said so far the fans had been very co-operative with GIS officials and indicated that the monitoring and surveillance team of the service had been going round the match centres and adjoining cities to ensure that everything was all right.
The Deputy Minister of Tourism and Diasporan Relations, Mr Kofi Osei-Ameyaw, said although the arrival figures might not be encouraging, the country would hit close to the anticipated arrivals at the end of the tournament when the data had been collated.
“I will suggest that we wait till the end of the tournament,” he said.
Mr Osei-Ameyaw said he was happy that there had not been many complaints about facilities for fans.
According to him, the only reported complaints were from fans who had not made advanced bookings but sought accommodation at the big hotels.
He said the Ghana Tourist Board had established information kiosks to assist people who needed help and appealed to fans to get in touch with the information officers for the requisite guidance.
Mr Osei-Ameyaw noted that the problem of accommodation would be keen when the competition got to its concluding stages as many people would arrive.
He was hopeful that when that happened it would afford the small hotels business.