How Ghana’s Volta Lake Is Becoming Africa’s Next Watersports Hub

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Ghana’s Volta Lake watersports scene is real, and it is growing faster than the continental strategy meant to encourage it. That gap, between what the African Union’s Continental Tourism Strategy pledged and what individual countries like Ghana have actually built, is the real story behind the jet skis at Akosombo.

The country’s Volta Lake watersports economy shows that Africa’s tourism ambitions can be delivered at national level with the right mix of infrastructure and marketing; it also exposes how little the African Union’s own Continental Tourism Strategy has done, seven years after it was endorsed, to turn that kind of local success into a continental pattern.

Akosombo’s watersports cluster has grown around a handful of operators. Lake Club offers jet skiing, kayaking, paddleboarding and boat cruises beneath the Adomi Bridge, alongside snorkelling and diving in parts of the lake. A short distance away, Dodi World runs the 150-capacity MV Dodi Princess II to Dodi Island, an 84-hectare island five kilometres offshore, where visitors combine boat cruises with jet skis, kayaks and other lake-based equipment. 

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Between March and July, when winds and temperatures are most favourable, Akosombo hosts regatta events that draw sailors, canoeists and kayakers from across Ghana, with categories for beginners as well as competitive racers. 

None of this happened by accident. It sits inside a national tourism sector that delivered its best year on record in 2024: 1.288 million international arrivals, a 12% rise on 2023, and $4.8 billion in revenue, according to the Ghana Tourism Authority’s 2024 Ghana Tourism Report. Licensed tourism enterprises rose from 5,786 in 2023 to 6,702 in 2024, and average tourist expenditure per trip reached $3,742. Volta Lake’s jet-ski schools and island cruises are a small slice of that total. Still, they represent exactly the kind of product diversification the African Union has spent nearly a decade telling member states to build.

The RCA Argument 

What the African Union Actually Promised

The promises are specific and dated. In October 2018, African Union tourism ministers meeting in Nairobi endorsed a continental tourism strategy framework, describing it as the route to a stronger African brand and greater sector competitiveness, tied to the AU’s Agenda 2063 goals of integration, prosperity and peace. At that same meeting, officials projected that Africa would host 134 million tourist arrivals by 2030, up from a sector then valued at more than $165 billion. The following year, the African Tourism Strategic Framework 2019–2028 set out the guiding principles for getting there, positioning tourism as a driver of regional integration and mutual understanding among African people. 

Two flagship projects were meant to carry that ambition. The Single African Air Transport Market, launched in January 2018, promised a liberalised, unified African sky that would generate 300,000 direct jobs and two million more indirectly, cutting the cost and complexity of moving tourists between African countries. The Africa Visa Openness Index, jointly run by the African Development Bank and the AU, was meant to track and accelerate a parallel promise: visa-free movement across the continent, in line with the AU’s Protocol on Free Movement of Persons. Together, these commitments described a continent where a traveller could fly easily between countries, land without a visa in most of them, and find diversified, well-marketed destinations like Volta Lake waiting on arrival.

Reality has moved more slowly. On aviation, the Single African Air Transport Market now counts 38 participating countries, representing more than 89%  of intra-African air traffic, and it has helped add 108 new routes between September 2022 and April 2025. That is genuine progress, but only 23 of those 38 states have signed the memorandum needed actually to implement it, and the pilot project chasing a 30% fifth-freedom traffic target by the end of 2025 still runs through a small cluster of 15 countries rather than the whole continent. 

Visa policy tells a starker story. The 2025 Africa Visa Openness Index found that 51.1%  of intra-African travel scenarios now require a visa arranged before departure, up from 47.1%  in 2024, the first time that figure has crossed the halfway mark since 2021. Visa-on-arrival access, meanwhile, fell to its lowest level ever, covering just 20.4% of travel scenarios, down from 24.8% the year before.  Only five countries- Benin, the Gambia, Rwanda, Seychelles and, since early 2025, Ghana itself allow every other African citizen to enter visa-free. A continental strategy built on the promise of free movement is, on its own AU-backed data, becoming harder for Africans to act on, not easier.

Ghana’s Proof of Concept, the Continent’s Missing Mechanism

Ghana’s own numbers show what happens when a country treats the AU’s tourism ambitions as a mandate rather than a suggestion. The Ghana Tourism Authority explicitly ties its national reporting to the global best-practice frameworks advocated by the UN World Tourism Organisation and the African Union’s Agenda 2063. That alignment produced a National Tourism Development Plan, regional tourism clusters, and marketing campaigns strong enough to lift Nigerian arrivals by 25% in a single year. Volta Lake’s watersports cluster is a downstream product of that national push, not a separate miracle.

The African Union has no equivalent enforcement mechanism of its own. It sets targets, publishes indices, and hosts ministerial dialogues. Still, it cannot compel a member state to ratify the Protocol on Free Movement of Persons, remove a visa requirement, or fund a jetty at a lake resort. The Continental Tourism Strategy reads, in practice, more like a shared aspiration that 55 governments individually choose whether to act on, which is precisely why Ghana’s Volta Lake can boom in 2025 while continental visa openness moves backwards in the same year.

Turning the 2030 Strategy Into More Than a Pipe Dream

Closing that gap requires the AU to behave less like a convener and more like an enforcer of its own commitments. Three shifts would matter most. First, the Protocol on Free Movement of Persons needs a hard ratification deadline tied to consequences for access to AfCFTA tourism financing, for instance, rather than open-ended encouragement, since voluntary uptake has stalled visa openness at pre-2021 levels. 

Also, the Single African Air Transport Market’s pilot clusters need to expand beyond 15 countries with binding timelines, not indefinite engagement, if the 30%  fifth-freedom target is to mean anything by the date it was set for. Third, the AU should fund and publicise domestic success stories such as Ghana’s lake tourism cluster as replicable case studies, with technical and marketing support attached, rather than leaving each government to discover watersports tourism, heritage tourism or conservation tourism on its own.

Africa’s tourism story is bigger than any single lake or any single summit. Read more Rex Clarke Adventures Feature articles on how African destinations are turning policy into product, and follow our ongoing tracking of the AU’s Continental Tourism Strategy as the 2030 deadline approaches.

 

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) And Answers 

What is the African Union’s Continental Tourism Strategy 2030?

It is the AU’s framework, built on Agenda 2063 and the African Tourism Strategic Framework 2019–2028, aimed at diversifying African tourism products and growing continental arrivals to 134 million by 2030.

Where is Volta Lake and why is it becoming known for watersports?

Volta Lake sits in Ghana’s Eastern Region, created by the Akosombo Dam. Operators at Akosombo, including Lake Club and Dodi World, now offer jet skiing, kayaking, wakeboarding and regatta events on what was once primarily a fishing and hydropower reservoir.

Has the AU’s Single African Air Transport Market actually reduced flight costs and improved connectivity?

It has added new routes and now covers 38 countries representing most intra-African air traffic, but only 23 states have signed the implementation memorandum. Hence, gains remain partial rather than continent-wide.

Is it getting easier or harder for Africans to travel visa-free within Africa?

Harder, according to the AU-backed 2025 Africa Visa Openness Index: the share of travel scenarios requiring a visa before departure rose past 51%, the highest level since 2021.

What would it take to make the AU’s 2030 tourism strategy succeed?

Binding ratification deadlines for the Protocol on Free Movement of Persons, expansion of air transport liberalisation beyond its current pilot countries, and continental funding for replicating national successes such as Ghana’s lake and heritage tourism clusters.