HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY LACKS SKILLED STAFF (PAGE 20)

THE National president of the Ghana Hotels Association, Nana Adjei Twinin, has deplored the growth in the hospitality industry in the country without a corresponding skilled manpower in the sector.
He said after decades of growth and expansion in the number of the facilities across the country, there was a yawning gap between the number of tourist facilities available and the right calibre of professional staff within the industry.
Nana Twinin was speaking at the second national executive committee meeting in Takoradi to discuss the challenges facing the industry and the way forward.
He said the last research by the Ghana Tourist Board (GTB) indicated that more than 60 per cent of the personnel in the tourism sector were untrained.
Nana Twinin said further that if the tourism sector would move from the third place to occupy the first position as the nation’s foreign exchange earner, then there was the need to provide training as well as employ the right calibre of people, reduce tax burdens and properly market the industry.
He added that the general lack of skills and competencies associated with the services being delivered at the operational levels in the industry was a fact that should not be ignored.
“Even though some proprietors are providing informal and in-house training to address the situation, the preference would be to have their personnel formally trained," Nana Twinin stressed.
He reminded players in the industry to remember that training or human resource development is at the heart of every successful business.
Nana Twinin stressed that for the tourism sector, which is considered as the third foreign exchange earner for the country after gold and cocoa, according to the 2008 economic policy statement, to thrive, there is the need for the players to be motivated.
The national president also observed that even though some training institutions had emerged, they were not equipped well enough to meet the needs of the industry.
To address the situation, he called for collaboration between the Ministries of Transportation and of Tourism and Diasporan Relations as well as players in the industry to ensure that the sector was positioned well to deliver.
Some of the participants who spoke to the Daily Graphic, also condemned the lack of trained personnel in the sector, adding that most of the establishments had employed people with little or no knowledge about the industry.
They expressed the hope that with the current position of the sector, the industry would employ the right kind of people to work.