The Cape Coast Castle recorded a total of 70,326 tourists last year as against 61,532 in 2015, an increase of 8,794 while the Elmina Castle received 40,971 tourists as against 43,891 in 2015. The number of domestic tourists who visited the two castles increased to 87,655 in 2016 from 82,521 in 2015.

The number of foreign tourist also increased slightly from 22,827 in 2015 to 23,639 in 2016.

Mrs Martha Krah, the Assistant Administrative Secretary at the Cape Coast Castle, who made this known to the Ghana News Agency (GNA), said 9,525 of last year’s figure were foreign students, 1,702 foreign children whiles 12,412 were adults.

She said 39,888 Ghanaian children also visited the two castles.

The hitherto large numbers of foreign tourists who visited the Cape Coast Castle over the years was largely affected by the Ebola scare in 2015 but the situation had not changed much after the scare abated in 2016.

The Elmina Castle recorded a marginal increase of foreign tourists from 10,778 in 2015 to 11,206 last year. This is despite the construction of the Benya Bridge at Elmina that leads to the Elmina Castle.The construction works on the bridge also meant that tourists had to use the long distance Ataabadze road which, apart from its distance, was also in a very deplorable state compelling most tourists to walk to the castle.

A total of 458 VIPs also visited the castles last year as against 386 the previous year.

Though domestic tourism had increased slightly over the years, school children continued to be the major patrons with very little interest from adults. Mrs Krah said Ghanaian adults were charged Ghc 5.00, foreign adults paid Ghc 40.00 and non-Ghanaian students with ID cards paid Ghc 30.00. She said non-Ghanaian children paid GHc5.00 and Ghanaian students in the primary and junior high school were charged GHc1.00 each while senior high school students paid GHc2.00 and tertiary students with ID cards paid GHc3.00.

She, however, could not disclose the total revenue accrued from the visits but expressed the optimism that if the number of visitors continued to increase, it would benefit the Ghana Monuments and Museums Board and the nation at large.Though pleased with the patronage of the facility, she appealed to Ghanaians to show interest in domestic tourism by visiting the tourist sites to have first hand information on the slave trade.