Before the tourist information centre existed, visitors simply wandered in on their own, unannounced — though many still made a point of greeting the chief first, since arriving in the village without doing so was considered impolite. Since 1998, when the office was founded with help from Peace Corps volunteers, tourists report their arrival there and can arrange accommodation, food, and tours, including hiking. As a guide, he meets visitors at the office and shows them the area — the landscape, daily life, and things like the local use of herbal medicine.
Tourism has opened a handful of genuinely new roles — guiding, catering, accommodation — open to men and women, young and old alike, and layered on top of existing work rather than replacing it. Prices, notably, haven't risen the way they have elsewhere; the local economy has absorbed the extra activity without yet passing the cost on.
Money earned at the tourist office feeds back into the community in concrete ways — better schooling, computer training, and a handful of scholarships for local girls, achieved with support from the Peace Corps and other organisations.
There is a good participation of different groups in the community when it comes to decisions on tourism development. Everyone has an indirect say in the decisions that are taken.
Daily infrastructure remains basic — no piped water, roughly 80 percent of homes connected to electricity, phone booths rather than home telephones, and roads from Ho that are still rough, especially in the rainy season, despite ongoing work. All land and housing here stays privately and locally owned, passed down within families rather than sold.
Crime is essentially absent, and there's no drug use or prostitution to speak of — the local bars serve residents and visitors alike, without any real separation between the two. Marriage customs remain largely traditional, whether in church or by custom, though cohabitation before marriage is becoming more common — something he doesn't attribute to tourist influence.
Visitors here skew heavily toward Peace Corps volunteers and NGO workers, alongside tourists from across the world and from Ghana itself. International visitors tend to find everything more novel — the architecture, the environment, the way of life. Ghanaian visitors come mostly for a quiet, cool weekend away from the city, already familiar with much of what they're seeing.
He's noticed the local landscape growing less attractive over the past year, with tree cutting and bushfires taking a visible toll despite ongoing efforts to control illegal logging. He's ambivalent about growth in general — not eager for more tourists exactly, but aware the community needs the money and jobs a larger flow would bring.
His one real request of visitors is one he'd never actually voice: a bit more modesty in dress. “No one will tell tourists that, though,” he says, “because we do not want to offend them — but we do think it is inappropriate.”