The Crown Forest Nature and Cultural Heritage Resort is the latest addition to a growing pipeline of eco-parks in Ghana. The park, located in Gomoa-Nsuaem, near Winneba in the Central Region of Ghana offers a unique combination of wildlife and hospitality. Services including four-star lodges, restaurants and other complementary services including game watching, trekking, fruit picking, swimming, indoor and outdoor games, gym, spa and guided drive-through tours in game vehicles with guides providing narratives to visitors.
The eco-park, which is under construction by a consortium of local and international developers, sits on over 820 acres of serene and scenic land. A game drive will afford visitors an exciting opportunity to view a collection of interesting soft game animals in a natural habitat.
Sam Winful, Chief Executive Officer of The Crown Forest also spoke about the preservation of a Slave Route that runs through the preserve, upon which slaves trudged enroute to Forte Winneba during the Transatlantic slave trade. He disclosed that the ‘sacred path’ would be memorialized with a visitor slave route experience.
In March this year, the project was issued a preliminary EDGE Certificate having demonstrated that the park will utilize resource-efficient design features and technologies to reduce its environmental impact and lower its carbon footprint. According to edgebuildings.com, LED lighting, and a variable refrigerant cooling system will be installed to reduce the resort’s energy use. Dual-flush water closets, low-flow showerheads and water-efficient landscaping will be used to reduce the resort’s water use. By using the EDGE software at the design stage, a hotel developer already knows the numbers in order to respond to discerning guests. By achieving EDGE certification, the developer has proof of going beyond self-regulation to become a truly resource-efficient enterprise.
Winful confirmed in an interview that operational costs savings was a big motivation in obtaining EDGE Certification. “The efficiencies that we save would argument our bottom line, so if our green design is going to help us save on energy consumption, then obviously our numbers are going to be better in terms of our bottom line and there will be the goodwill that we will gain from our patrons as well as cost savings ultimately from having an efficient building.” He affirmed. EDGE reiterates that this numeric approach to design is one that any corporate leader can understand – and what can be easily understood at the top can be rapidly set in motion. Simply put, sustainability means a better bottom line, as utilities savings of 20% or more can help hotel owners fight for that last 2% of profitability. This is the hospitality edge that will delight Winful and his team at Crown Forrest.
