Year of Return, Beyond the Return, Black Star Experience: three names, and the visitors kept coming

In September 2018, President Nana Akufo-Addo announced in Washington that 2019 would be Ghana's "Year of Return", marking 400 years since the first enslaved Africans landed in Virginia in 1619. In November 2019, 126 African Americans and Afro-Caribbeans were sworn in as Ghanaian citizens at Jubilee House.

How the $3.3 billion was counted

In December 2019 the Tourism Minister said the Year of Return had brought about $1.9 billion into the economy. On 28 May 2020, answering a question in Parliament, she put tourism receipts at $3.312 billion. The figure came from 1.13 million international arrivals in 2019 multiplied by an average spend of $2,931 per tourist, so it counts every international arrival that year, not only Year of Return visitors.

She described arrivals growth as 27 percent. Her own figures, 956,372 arrivals in 2018 and 1.13 million in 2019, work out to about 18 percent. Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, then the opposition MP who asked the question and now Foreign Minister, said afterwards that the data was "all over the place", according to Citi News. In December 2019 the policy analyst Bright Simons had already argued that the campaign's success "needs no embellishment". QMS found no independent audit of the $3.3 billion figure.

Beyond the Return, then a pandemic

In December 2019 the government launched Beyond the Return, a ten-year diaspora programme for 2020 to 2030. In 2020, COVID-19 cut international arrivals to about 355,000. By 2023 they were back to about 1.1 million. A Pan-African village for returnees in the Central Region drew protests from local families who said their land had been given away, NPR and The Africa Report found. In 2024 Ghana recorded a record 1.29 million visitors and about $4.8 billion in tourism receipts, and 524 more members of the diaspora became citizens.

A new name under a new government

After the January 2025 change of government, the Ghana Tourism Authority chief who ran the Year of Return resigned and Kofi Okyere Darko became Director of Diaspora Affairs. President John Mahama announced the Black Star Experience, the NDC manifesto's "flagship" culture, arts and tourism brand, in his February 2025 State of the Nation address and launched it at Black Star Square on 1 May 2025. In the March 2025 budget debate, NPP MP Abena Osei-Asare said the government was giving "fanciful names" to existing initiatives.

The programme's coordinator, Rex Omar, has said it came into existence after the 2025 budget was read, so it had no budget that year. In June 2026 the Graphic asked "Where is Black Star Experience?", and in August the Joy FM arts journalist Kwame Dadzie wrote an open letter asking the President to scrap it. A Black Star Fashion Week is planned for 4 to 7 November 2026.

More visitors, less money

Arrivals kept rising under both governments: 1.29 million in 2024 and 1.31 million in 2025. Receipts fell, from about $4.8 billion to about $4.34 billion, which works out to roughly $3,700 per visitor in 2024 against about $3,300 in 2025. Citizenship grants continued: 155 more people took the oath in March 2026, and from 25 May 2026 Ghana made e-visas free for all Africans. QMS could not find a published progress report for Beyond the Return, which runs to 2030.