Tourism and culture

Tourism

Who visits, and what they spend

Tourism earns foreign money just like an export, except the customer comes to us. In 2025, Ghana welcomed 1,306,962 international visitors, 1.4% more than in 2024. The United States sent the most (155,289), followed by Nigeria (136,552) and the United Kingdom (56,588).¹

Here is the catch. More people came, but they spent less. Tourism receipts fell from US$4.82 billion to US$4.34 billion, and average spending per visitor dropped from about US$3,743 to US$3,320. The average visitor stayed 13 nights.¹

Ghanaians are tourists too. Visits to the 55 sites tracked by the Ghana Tourism Authority rose 7% to 1.79 million in 2025, and residents made up 84% of that demand.¹

Where visitors go

Castles, a memorial park, forests and falls

The coastal forts and castles. The trading posts built along our coast between Keta and Beyin form one of Ghana's two UNESCO World Heritage sites, inscribed in 1979. The other is the Asante Traditional Buildings around Kumasi, inscribed in 1980.⁴ Cape Coast Castle began as a Swedish timber fort in 1653 and became the last stop for many enslaved Africans before the Atlantic crossing. US President Barack Obama and his family visited in 2009.⁵ Elmina Castle, built in 1482, is covered on our History page.

Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park, Accra. Ghana's most visited tourist site in 2025, with 302,523 visitors.¹ It stands on the old colonial polo grounds where Nkrumah declared independence, was dedicated in 1992 and reopened after renovation on 4 July 2023.⁶

Kakum National Park, Central Region. The second most visited site in 2025, with 203,222 visitors.¹ Its famous canopy walkway lets you walk through the treetops of a rainforest that is home to elephants, bongo antelope, seven kinds of primate and around 200 bird species.⁷

Mole National Park, Savannah Region. Ghana's largest wildlife refuge, first protected in 1958 and made a national park in 1971, with 94 mammal species, including elephants, and over 300 kinds of birds.⁸

Wli Waterfalls, Volta Region. Described by the Ghana Tourism Authority as the highest waterfall in West Africa, about 280 km from Accra.⁹

A homecoming

The Year of Return and a visa-free Africa

In 2019, Ghana invited people of African descent to "come home" for the Year of Return, linked to the 400th anniversary of enslaved Africans landing in what is now the United States. Official figures for January to September 2019 showed about 237,000 extra visitors, a rise of 45% on the same period a year earlier.³

Ghana then opened its doors to the rest of the continent. Since the start of 2025, all African passport holders can visit without a visa, making Ghana the fifth African country to do so after Rwanda, Seychelles, The Gambia and Benin.²

Culture

Kente and adinkra: cloth that speaks

Kente is made from strips of silk, cotton or rayon woven on horizontal looms. Each design carries a name drawn from proverbs, sayings and social situations, and the colours and patterns a person wears can reflect age, status and gender. In 2024, UNESCO added the craftsmanship of kente to its list of the world's intangible cultural heritage.¹⁰

Adinkra are Akan symbols that stand for ideas and proverbs. They appear on cloth, pottery, buildings, stools and goldweights. Strictly, in Twi "adinkra" names the cloth itself, which was traditionally worn by royalty and spiritual leaders at funerals and other solemn occasions.¹¹ The Sankofa bird that gives this site its name is one of them.

Festivals

Every people has its day

Ghana's festivals are history you can see and hear. Three examples:

• Homowo (Ga, Greater Accra, August or September). The name means "to hoot at hunger" and recalls a famine in Ga history.¹²
• Aboakyer (Effutu, Winneba, usually the first Saturday of May). Two Asafo warrior groups race to catch a live bushbuck with their bare hands. The name means "hunting for game" in Fante.¹³
• Damba (Dagbon and neighbouring kingdoms of the north). First celebrated to mark the birth and naming of the Prophet Muhammad, it has become a celebration of Dagbon's history and chieftaincy.¹⁴

Everyday culture

Day names and Friday wear

Among the Akan, every child has a name for the day of the week they were born. Kwame, for example, means a boy born on Saturday.¹⁵

Day names come in pairs, one for boys and one for girls; a Saturday girl is Ama. Spellings also vary: the Fante say Kwamena or Kwamina for Kwame.¹⁵

Fridays look different in Ghanaian offices. In 2004, President John Agyekum Kufuor launched National Friday Wear, encouraging everyone to wear locally made clothing each Friday to support our textile industry.¹⁶

Food

A starch, a soup and something to go with it

The simplest way to understand Ghanaian food is as a pairing: a filling starch with a soup or stew and some protein. Soups are the main course, not a starter.¹⁷

• Fufu: pounded cassava and plantain, or yam, or cocoyam, always eaten with soup, such as light soup, palm nut soup or groundnut soup.¹⁷
• Banku and kenkey: both made from fermented corn dough. Banku is a corn and cassava mix cooked into balls; kenkey is wrapped in corn husks or plantain leaves and boiled.¹⁷
• Waakye: rice and beans, given its reddish colour by sorghum.¹⁷
• Jollof: rice cooked in a stew of tomatoes, stock and spices, usually served with meat.¹⁷
• Kelewele and red red: spiced fried plantain, and a bean stew served with fried ripe plantain.¹⁷
• Tuo zaafi: a firm dish of millet, sorghum or maize from northern Ghana.¹⁷

And for dessert, Ghana has its own day for chocolate. Since 2005, 14 February has also been National Chocolate Day, to promote eating Ghanaian chocolate and cocoa products.²¹

Music and sport

Highlife and the Black Stars

Highlife is Ghana's signature popular music: guitars, horns, drums and percussion, call-and-response singing, and lyrics about everyday life in local languages, English and Pidgin. It is played at weddings, funerals, festivals and naming ceremonies. UNESCO added highlife music and dance to its intangible heritage list in 2025.¹⁸

The Black Stars, our men's national football team, have won the Africa Cup of Nations four times: 1963, 1965, 1978 and 1982. They have played at five World Cups, and their best run was to the quarter-finals in 2010.¹⁹ At the 2026 World Cup, they beat Panama 1-0, drew 0-0 with England and lost 2-1 to Croatia, then went out in the round of 32 after a 1-0 defeat by Colombia.²⁰

Quick recap

Five things to remember

1. 1.3mInternational visitors in 2025, led by the United States and Nigeria.¹
2. Top siteKwame Nkrumah Memorial Park drew the most visitors in 2025.¹
3. 2025Ghana became visa free for all African passport holders.²
4. UNESCOKente (2024) and highlife (2025) are now world heritage traditions.¹⁰¹⁸
5. KwameAn Akan boy born on Saturday.¹⁵