Deputy Minister of Tourism, Culture and Creative Arts, Mark Okraku-Mantey has revealed that most hotels have already reached their capacity for tourists this December.

According to him, this reflects the heavy focus on festivities in Ghana by both locals and diasporans during that period.

"I am informed that [for] December our rooms for hotels are already full," he disclosed on Wednesday.

The Minister says his outfit is working tirelessly to make tourism an all-year event instead of just December to generate revenue for entrepreneurs and government at large.

"Yesterday we had a meeting on that, instead of just thinking of December, in the last quarter, how do we make our first and second quarters also busy, what do we put in there, like next month we’re having ‘Panafest’, definitely it’s going to get busy,” he said.

Speaking on Joy FM’s Super Morning Show, the Deputy Minister said this initiative will go a long way to encourage individuals to also invest in facilities to accommodate more tourists.

“That’s an opportunity for people to start building, that’s why I’m communicating some of these things to you, those who have money can take advantage of that,” the Minister indicated.

He also said most entrepreneurs often overprice their services because of high demand during festive seasons.

However, when this initiative materialises, it will help reduce the cost of tourism and accommodation because the income will be spread throughout the year.

“It’s a demand and supply business and that’s why we want to be intentional about how we market our tourism to the world, the trick is that at the moment all the hotels know our cocoa season is December.”

“Because we have ‘Year of Return’ in Ghana, and in February and March sometimes we are dry, so they’ll wait and they’ll bill you when you come for December, so if the Ministry is able to do more in terms of content or activities that’ll bring people in between January and December…”

“Then they can plan and say, let’s reduce our prices because, between January and December, we’ll almost be busy every day,” he explained.