Though
hotel accommodation facilities keep increasing in this country, there
is still not enough Ghanaians with the appropriate expertise to manage
the high-end ones.
The National Tourism Development Plan
indicates that the number of star-rated hotels in Ghana grew from 1,345
in 2005 to 1,747 in 2010. Majority of the hotels are within the one and
two-star categories though several higher category hotels are still at
the construction phase.
The President of the Ghana Chamber of
Commerce and Industries, Dr Seth Adjei-Baah, however, said in Accra last
week that the chamber’s records showed that most of the three to
five-star hotels in this country were all managed by foreigners.
He
was speaking at a programme at the Holiday Inn to launch the first
national Ghana Hotels Awards which forms part of the 40th anniversary
celebration of the Ghana Hotels Association (GHA).
“We want to
believe that after 40 years, we will have hotels within the three to
five-star categories and most importantly, get Ghanaians to be at the
helm of affairs of such hotels.
“It is something we have to look
at because we are importing people to come and manage and export our
scanty foreign exchange. Let’s look at how best we can train our people
to manage things for us within our environment,” Dr Adjei-Baah stated.
Ghana Tourist Board sources indicate that there are 36 three-star, six four-star and two five-star hotels in this country.
The
President of the GHA, Mr Herbert Acquaye, agreed with Dr Adjei-Baah
that more Ghanaians needed to take up roles in the middle and senior
management levels at high-end hotels.
To him, the absence of
high-level training schemes in the country was the main reason Ghanaians
were absent at the top-end of hotel management in their own country.
“The
high-end hotels are all GHA members and we encourage them to evolve
capacity-building and grooming programmes for their Ghanaian staff to
enable them fill in middle and senior level management positions,” Mr
Acquaye said.
He pointed out that government also had a role to
play in the establishment of appropriate training schemes to churn out
high calibre hotel management personnel.
“We are persistently but
gently pushing the appropriate arms of government to step into the
fray. I believe in the long run, they would have no other choice than to
ensure that a lot more qualified Ghanaians are there to man the
three-star to five-star hotels.”
The Acting Deputy Executive
Director (Finance and Administration) at the Ghana Tourist Board, Mr
Samson Donkor, told The Mirror that the top manpower requirement of the
hotel industry can only be met when a high-standard training school gets
going in this country.
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the
two-star Coconut Grove Regency Hotel in Accra, Mr Ralph Ayite, stressed
that the hotel business was a multi-million dollar industry and the
issue of Ghanaians lacking the requisite know-how to manage top-end
hotels should be of concern to the government and everyone concerned
about successful tourism in Ghana.
The 2015 Ghana Hotels Awards
has been scheduled for Saturday, November 21 in Accra. The awards,
according to the GHA president, is to celebrate the most successful
hotels, hoteliers and hotel employees across Ghana.
The theme for
the awards scheme this year is: Rewarding Creativity and Excellence in
Hotel Keeping. Awards are expected to be given in 24 categories that
embrace all star-rated hotels in this country.
A former GHA
president who chaired the awards launch ceremony, Barima Kofi Adjei
Twinin I, urged the selection committee to be utterly transparent in
their work to enable recipients value the awards.
He said the
accommodation factor was a critical component of tourism and GHA members
should abide by high standards at all times to help promote tourism in
this country. |
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