International tourist arrivals grew by 75.59% in 2021 to 623,523, the 2021 Tourism Report has disclosed.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, international tourist arrivals dipped to 355,108 in 2020, from 1.130 million in 2019.

But the trend changed following the further easing of COVID-19 in 2021.

The report was put together by the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture; Ghana Tourism Authority and Ghana Cares Obataanpa programme.

In terms of the top 10 arrival countries at the Kotoka International Airport in 2021, USA (92,139) led, followed by Nigeria (59,193), Britain (34,073), Germany (14,785) and Netherland (11,923).

The rest are Canada (8,475), Cote D’ivoire (8,413), (China 8,088), South Africa (7,591) and France (7,048).

For the type of accommodation for visitors, 38.6% of the visitors stayed in hotel, while 41.4% lodged in private homes. 12.9% stayed in guest houses and 2.4% were in corporate houses.

29.7% of the visitors came to Ghana specifically for business, whilst 23.6% were here for the purpose of visit.

With regard to quality of hotel facilities, 60.70% said the facilities were good, whilst 28.20% said it was excellent. A meagre 0. 30% said the facilities weren’t good.

For quality of hotel services, 59.30% said the services were good, whereas 0.60% said it was poor.

In terms of the Quality of Restaurant Service, 60.60% said the quality of services were good and 0.70% said the were poor.

For Airport Facilities, 48.40% which was the highest numbers said the facilities were excellent and 0.20% said they were poor.

49.10% said Ghanaians were hospitable, whilst 1% said they were not.

For overall impression about Ghana, 67.7% said the country was good, 25.5% said excellent, 5.6%  said normal and 0.6% poor.

According to the report, tourism globally suffered its worst year in 2020.

Real-time data is now a critical component for reopening borders, managing destinations, and for the industry to build back better from the crisis.

The 2021 annual tourism report consists of three parts including Air Travellers Survey.