Social capital is an essential concept to consider in tourism development. Tourism is by nature, socially interactive, where different actors interact on several levels. Tourism thus creates a situation that can permit socialization and support the growth of relationships, which can lead to the creation of social capital (Van Ingen & Van Eijck, 2009; Yuen et al., 2005; Dworkin et al., 2003). The Cape Coast and Elmina area is noted to be the heartbeat of Ghana’s rich tourism offerings. Although described as the heartbeat of Ghana’s rich tourism offerings, tourism has performed poorly to improve the livelihoods of the people of Cape Coast and Elmina (Koutra, 2015; Koutra & Edwards, 2012; Sonne, 2010; Boakye, 2008; Arthur & Mensah, 2006; Teye et al., 2002). It is, therefore, likely that tourism is contributing little to the formation of alternate living opportunities amongst people living at Cape Coast and Elmina (Holden, Sonne & Novelli, 2011). There are growing expectations for social capital to contribute to community and tourism development. Social capital has also been introduced as a tool to alleviate poverty and improve the livelihoods of people (Grootaert & Van Bastelaer 2002; 2001; Woolcock 2002). These expectations have developed in line with calls for well-structured methods to qualitatively evaluate social capital (Taylor, 2017), as other methods of measuring and evaluating social capital may well overlook the complex and often inconsistent nature of human interactions (Ooi et al., 2015b). As a response to the calls, social capital theory and qualitative social network analysis were employed to understand the nature and scope of relationships among tourism businesses at Cape Coast and Elmina, Ghana. The results of a thematic analysis of participant responses to a series of interview questions identified that majority of the participants do not gain any benefits or resources from their associations or relationships in tourism, with just a few of them receiving some benefits from friends and family.