The Cape Coast and Elmina Castles, bagged 170,459,950 million cedis from admission fees between January and July. The amount is 74,426,550 million cedis more than the 96,033,400 million cedis collected within the same period last year.
The Acting Central Regional Director of the Ghana Museums and Monuments Board (GMMB), Mr. Raymond Agbo made this known in an interview with the Ghana News Agency at Cape Coast. He said a total of 73,297 visitors out of which 10,581 were foreigners visited the castles during the period as against 122,654 visits recorded for the whole of last year. He said out of the 73,293 visits the Elmina castle played host to 54,310 with the Cape Coast receiving 18,987, while 81,281 and 41,373 visits were recorded respectively, during the whole of last year.
Mr. Agbo said the Elmina castle has received more visitors because of the presence of the qualified tour guides there and that more of such guides will be engaged at the Cape Coast castle to increase the number of visitors. He, however, expressed concern about the fact that there is no communication facility at the Elmina castle, while inadequate funding has also made regular maintenance of the two structures impossible. Foreign visitors to the castles pay 5 dollars for guided tours and half the amount for unguided tours while domestic tourists pay 1,000 cedis and 500 cedis for guided and unguided tours respectively.
