Property owners in Kwahu in the Eastern Region have had to convert their homes into guest houses to accommodate bulging patrons of the annual Easter festivities.
All hotels are fully occupied with some rooms booked as far back as last year.
Some hotels have taken advantage of the situation to charge more than twice their rates with some guests having to compulsorily book for five days.
This was one of my discoveries at Kwahu as the news crew went in search for accommodation.
Even before we could embark on the search, some residents whom we enquired from made it clear to us that there was no way we could get accommodation since we were coming to Kwahu on Thursday.
Nevertheless, we decided to visit some hotels and do the search ourselves. Not even one of the four hotels we visited had a single vacant room available.
“As far as January this year, all our rooms had been booked for this year’s festival. So as we speak now our rooms are occupied…and you have to book for five days continuous before we give you the room.
“We used to charge GH¢60 per night but now we charge GH¢700 for five days. The rooms we ideally charged for GH¢80 are now going for GH¢900 and even as we speak now, none of them is empty. They have been full since last week.”
These are from only two of the four hotels we visited. At this point, all hope was lost. On the Obemeng street, we came across this man who was willing to give out his room for us for GH¢60 a night.
In Twi, he said: “I only have some few stuffs in the room…I can just take them out and allow you to stay there…but that would be only for this Easter season…once you are ready just let me know…here are the keys, will take you to look at the place”.
When asked where he was going to sleep, he answered: “Oh don’t worry, I will sort it out.”
Eventually we managed to get a better place to lay our heads. However, this experience exposed us to the struggles some people go through to get accommodation in the area during the season and also how property owners take advantage of the situation to cash in.
By Kwabena Adu-Gyamfi|3news.com|Ghana