Hohoe Tourism Committee appeals to Barclays to re-open branch

Hohoe, May 2, GNA- Mr Dennis Jordor, Chairman of the Hohoe District Tourism Development Committee (HDTDC) on Monday appealed to the management of Barclays Bank Ghana Limited to reconsider reopening its Hohoe offices to boost tourism in the district. He said the closure of the outlet at Hohoe last year was adversely affecting its tourism industry in the district since potential tourists especially expatriates could not access their visa, master and credit cards when they visit the area.

Mr Jordor told the Ghana News agency that Barclays Bank was operating in Ho, the regional capital, which is far from Hohoe and appealed to the management of the Bank to re-evaluate the situation. He noted that 30 percent of the over 300,000 tourists, who visited the district's 14 tourist sites, were foreigners who have said that they were not able to visit other tourist sites in the area, venting their frustrations on the inability to access banking facilities especially that of Barclays.

Mr Jordor explained that even though 350 million cedis was accrued to the district in 2006, the situation would have been different, had the about 90,000 foreign guest to the district stayed longer to explore the tourism potentials of the district. "Their hard cash would have remained in the local community, in other forms, create jobs and wealth", he intimated. Mr Jordor said another complaint and setback to the tourists was their inability to communicate from the sites within the district and appealed to Communication and phone operators to extend their services to such areas.

He said the district's tourist's sites have been extensively marketed locally and abroad on its website and that the HDTDC was an affiliate member of the World Tourism Organization (WTO) and the only district to have insured all tourists sites culminating in the current inflow of visitors.

The district's major sites include the Wli Waterfall, Tafi-Atome Monkey Sanctuary, mountain Afadzato, Logba-Tota limestone, caves and the Gbi-Godenu Talking River.