Bright Simons, the Vice President of Policy Think Tank IMANI Africa, in a recent post on X, has detailed how Accra luxury Hotel rooms cost more than New York’s.
Mr Simons, in his post, used Marriott hotel room prices in Accra ($999) versus New York ($725) for the same night to illustrate “totemic prices,” extending the Big Mac index concept to show how specific high-status items shape upper-middle-class and business traveller perceptions of costs.
He detailed that despite Accra’s lower hotel occupancy 45-58% regionally versus NYC’s 84% and cheaper KFC bundles in Accra 18% less, the premium hotel stay appears 75% more expensive relative to local fast food, creating a “gateway wedge” of 1.75x that affects foreign direct investment sentiment.
In a post on X, Bright Simons wrote, “1. It has been about 40 years since an editor at the Economist magazine created the Big Mac index.
2. It basically tries to use the price of a McDonald’s burger around the world to compare purchasing power and exchange rates among countries.
3. The idea being that a Mac is almost the same everywhere and so should have a roughly equal dollar price.
4. With many caveats, you can use that logic to determine if a currency is over/under-valued.
5. Nowadays, an iPhone is seen by some as a better product to use for such analysis.
6. Frequent readers may remember my earlier point about “totemic inflation.” The idea is that for certain upper middle class people, the prices of specific status-related things may affect their sentiment about the economy more than general prices/inflation.
7. Last time, I used hotel buffets to discuss totemic inflation. However, it occurred to me a few days ago that one can use room prices of globally branded hotels in a cross-border analysis of “totemic prices.”
8. So, I picked a premier hotel brand and chose comparable rooms for the same night in New York and Accra.
9. The Accra room was almost more than 40% more expensive than the New York room. As in $999 vs ~$725.
10. When I use KFC bundles on the other hand, I find that Accra is ~18% cheaper than New York.
[Note: the Accra hotel stay buys 52.8 local KFC buckets. The Manhattan stay buys 30.2. Relative to fast food, the Accra hotel stay is 75% more expensive.]
11. The theory here is that the premier room comparison is MORE SALIENT for business visitors in Ghana than KFC prices.
12. And that these kinds of visitors are in the global “decision belt,” which means their sentiments matter more for things like foreign direct investment.
13. As a general point, the cost of visiting Accra has been rising significantly. But that is not the key insight here.
14. The key insight is that psychology can hook on to single, idiosyncratic data points and sometimes these matter more than averages and general trends.
15. A business scout for a multinational company hit with $999 for a night at a Ridge hotel room isn’t going to offset the feeling with $1 dollar kelewele at Labone junction, even though for people like me kelewele is far more important!
[Note: NYC hotel occupancy was 84.1% in 2025. Accra’s occupancy rate hovers around ~45%. So this is not a “scarcity” story.]
See the post below:
1. It has been about 40 years since an editor at the Economist magazine created the Big Mac index.
— Bright Simons (@BBSimons) July 27, 2026
2. It basically tries to use the price of a Mcdonald's burger around the world to compare purchasing power and exchange rates among countries.
3. The idea being that a Mac is… pic.twitter.com/NmQv1RfYlx
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