Head of Sales for Labadi Beach Hotel, George Ayisi, speaks about the use of modern technology in their operations, marketing of African destinations, among other issues. Charles Ajunwa brings excerpts
In the past one year, there’s been a lot of marketing of African destinations because of the visa restrictions. I’d like to find out how that has impacted your business?
We looked at figures that were produced by the Ghana Tourism Authority for 2025, and if you look at those figures, it was clear that business has actually increased because I think the government also listened to what the industry is talking about in terms of making sure that we promote business amongst Africans. I’m very happy to see that when we do our nationality statistics in terms of business, Nigeria runs high also amongst the African countries. And that is also because the government has deliberately, I mean, ensured that amongst West Africans, there is a visa free. I mean, we didn’t require a visa to come to Nigeria. Nigerians doesn’t require a visa to come to Accra. I’ve always said to people that I engage, that it just takes you 45 minutes maximum you are in Accra. We know that in terms of West Africa, Nigeria controls one of the biggest economies, and tourism is also big here. So once those partnerships are free, economically between the government and also partnerships with the hotels and the stakeholders are very fluid and something that everybody can leverage on to promote business. Like I said, tourism, particularly in terms of travels from Nigeria to Ghana, set high in 2025. And I’m looking forward to reading something exciting regarding the 2026 report, which means that it’s an indication that business is flourishing and growing. Once this is working for us, what we need to do is to intensify and then make sure that we go on the same pace and then tangent.
Do you make use of artificial intelligence in your operations?
Yes. We know the importance of artificial intelligence. In terms of technology in general, we have developed a lot of platforms. For example, in the past, it was difficult with maybe payment systems, but we have developed our technology to enhance transfer of funds and assessing information primarily.
Even when, normal working hours are over, you can always interact with the hotel because we have engaged our technology to ensure that this hotel runs like 24/7. So there’s no human behind it, but you can at any point at all enter the hotel. We believe in it and we know very well that the time zones are different, and so we need to employ this AI as part of our technological infrastructure to ensure that we satisfy the customers.
Tell us about Labadi Beach Hotel?
Labadi Beach Hotel is Ghana’s premier 5-star hotel, established in 1991, and we’re just about 10 minutes away from the main airport. So, literally this year we are 35 years as a hotel, and since we actually came onto the Ghanaian hospitality landscape, we have really led the hospitality space.
Our hotel is predominantly a hotel that is ideal for both leisure and business. So for us, we combine two of these traveller sets. And as you see, it’s a hotel that has 164 rooms of various
categories, and we’re a beachfront hotel. What it means is that there is a lot of activities for corporate organisations, for team building exercises, for those who are looking to do corporate retreats outside of Nigeria. We have also really established ourselves in the Nigerian market. We have a lot of Nigerian clients that we work with, and they love our hotel because of what we stand for.
We are a hotel that believes in service excellence, and so across all the catch points of our service and whatever we do, we ensure that we never compromise on quality, we never
compromise on service standards at all. As a hotel, we’ve been adjudged many times by distinguished organisations, especially if you look at CIMG, Chartered Institute for
Marketing Ghana. They have inducted us into the Hall of Fame as the best five-star hotel in
Ghana.
So when it comes to Labadi Beach Hotel and what we stand for, we are not new to the Nigerian market, especially the West African market. We have connected with Akwaaba because we believe that this is the platform that puts travellers together, tour operators, and then travel agencies. This is where the right connections are made. We believe in this platform. We believe that coming to 22nd Akwaaba is very important, and we’re going to leverage on the opportunities that we have established, on the connections and contacts that we have established, doing a lot of negotiations and certain partnerships that will propel us forward as a hotel.
What’s new about Labadi?
Of course, there are so many reasons to come to Labadi. As I did mention, it’s a beachfront property. In terms of our service excellence, we believe also that training your staff is very
paramount and key. Every property is a hotel, but it’s not just the building that makes the service. No, for us, it’s the service excellence that we are very proud of and we deliberately invest into this to ensure that our staff, when it comes to customer service, when it comes to everything, we are on top of our game.
At Labadi, there are plans for advancement and then also developing the property. You know, we started with 102 rooms initially. Then in 2010, we added 62 rooms. So we had 164 rooms in total. There is also preparation for us to add 100 more rooms with an ultramodern conference facility. In the next two years, when you come to Labadi, you will not recognise it because it’s going to really stand out. It’s going to be the very place that everybody comes to in Accra. Of course, with services, we never compromise on them. So we can only get better every year on what we do. So in terms of newness, we create spaces in our hotel.
Recently, we had major conferences that we were having. Those major conferences, we were challenged with space. What we did was to put our innovative thinking caps on and look at our space and develop a conference centre, which was like a big ship conference centre with a marquee. Beautiful, that could host about 800 people. The organisers were very
surprised that we could do that with our space. As I said, we are ideal for mice business, meetings, incentives, conferences, and exhibitions. Bigger ones and then smaller ones. Corporate businesses, corporate retreats. Recently, we also had a company from Lagos, Nigeria, called Buwake Enterprise. They came, and then the feedback is that, no, we made the right choice coming all the way from Lagos to have the conference at Labadi Hotel in Ghana. So when we hear reports like this, it makes us know that we are sitting well. We are doing what the clients or the customers really are looking forward to. In the
next two years, as I said, when you come to Labadi, you will see a new face of Labadi. Service will always be improved, but you will see the building has been also developed where now our capacity in terms of room stock will be 264.
Talking about nice and leisure, which has highest sell?
At one point, we were thinking that we were only like a resort. But we realised that there’re a lot of business conferences that we have in our hotel. For us, it is mainly the groups that we have had. We combine both leisure and business. Lately, what we have said, is that we are even a hotel that is ideal for nature lovers. As you can see right here, all these coconut trees that are built were intentional about the hotel, creating an eco green environment. We are talking sustainability lately. They are all part of the things that we have adopted in our hotel, making sure that we are on top of the new trends. So it’s a mix of business and leisure that we have in our hotel, in terms of the customer base.