La Palm Royal Beach Hotel cleans up its beachfront
Ghana's tourism sector, like many around the globe, was hit hard at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic - a situation that took a toll on stakeholders in the hospitality industry.
As a premier city-centre beach resort, the La Palm Royal Beach Hotel could not be left out of this equation as business was brought to a standstill.
With the UN Climate Change of the Parties (COP26) underway in Glasgow and Ghana having a full representation at the summit, it is only natural for the hospitality destination to front some of the sustainable actions on climate change.
It is against this background that the hotel embarked on a clean-up exercise on Friday, November 5 at its beachfront.
The clean-up was also to prepare the hotel as the country gears up for the 2021 Beyond the Return season in December.
Acting Managing Director of La Palm Royal Beach Hotel, Mr. Kwesi Kwening, noted that the exercise is part of the hotel’s corporate social responsibility.
“We decided to clean the coastal areas of the hotel to make it tidy and clean for our key stakeholders. Looking at the coastal area from the hotel, it is very untidy and over the years we have had our customers complaining."
“So we gathered, as part of our corporate social responsibility, to clean up the area and also ensure that we get a good environment to operate for our customers to be happy with,” he added.
The clean-up exercise was executed in partnership with Dolphin House Production and both companies had their management as well as staff present.
On the hotel’s partnership with the production firm, Mr. Kwening stated that “it has been so good - they brought a lot of people, tools and everything to support the exercise. This is the beginning and we are hoping that it will increase as time goes by, for the mutual benefit of both parties.”
Sales and Marketing Manager of the hotel, Mr. Valentine Appiah also acknowledged business is getting better while outlining their readiness to host some major activities during the 2021 festive season. The line-up of activities includes the flagship kids party, boxing day event, pool party, soccer fiesta and many more.
He disclosed that for this festive season, the hotel rates have been reduced drastically by more than half the regular price and customers will enjoy all the benefits.
Mr. Appiah bemoaned the unpleasant way the sea is treated and urged persons living along the beaches to keep the environment clean.
“The rate at which we throw things into the gutters is bad. You might think that you are throwing your [garbage] away somewhere in Labadi but it ends up in the sea. It doesn't give us a good image at all, we have all these foreigners who come into hotels like this. Yes, we might keep the inside of the hotel nice but the beach is also part of the package. It doesn’t speak well of us at all,” he stated.
“We are going to put in place measures to ensure it doesn’t reoccur. This cleaning used to be done every day. Fortunately for us, La Palm Royal Beach Hotel is back [in full operation] so the cleaning continues. It is supposed to boost the hospitality industry - people should come and have a very serene environment,” he reaffirmed.