Tourism, hospitality a major source of employment – Minister

Ms Akua Sena Dansoa, Minister of Tourism on Monday said the tourism and the hospitality sectors of the economy have remained one of the largest avenues for employment creation in the country.

She said the tourism sector requires a healthy workforce to enhance service delivery to translate into positive economic growth for the industry, which is largely dependent on private sector investment.

Ms Dansoa made this observation at the end of a project review of the Ghana Tourism Authority and the Hospitality Industries on the theme: “Promoting Good Health through Tourism.”

She said health was one of the priorities of the Government’s “Better Ghana Agenda” and that the government would collaborate with private institutions, religious organizations, local and foreign NGOs as well as individuals who continued to take steps to address the concerns and challenges in the health sector.

Ms Dansoa said ensuring optimum health for employer and employees through health sensitization activities was critical as good health contributed to valued addition and improved levels of value retention.

She said Ghana was recently rated in the United States as one of the 10 top travel destinations to visit in 2012 and “The Ministry of Tourism was taking steps to improve the international marketing of Ghana as a destination and also promoting domestic tourism.”

Ms Adeline Boateng, Human Resource Manager of the Ghana Tourism Authority said tourism held the human resource base of organizations since contacts among human beings were made constantly saying, “The industry is highly labour intensive and needs a healthy workforce to make a difference.”

Ms Boateng said the programme was aimed at covering the whole Nation but for a start five (5) Regions were selected namely Greater Accra, Western, Central, Volta and Ashanti Regions.

She said training and sensitization programmes were organized for selected staff of the Ghana Tourism Authority as well as members of the hospitality trade associations in the  five selected regions, adding that, “as an organization we are ready to create a supportive environment to help all those in the tourism and hospitality fraternity to lead healthy lives.”

Currently 146 institutions have the work places policies in place but 5,164 policies have so far been distributed in all, she added.

Dr Tills, Team Leader of GIZ-ReCHT, said an expansion of HIV and TB health units for disease prevention within the hospitality industry would be established.

He said since 2006 private and public sector implementation of work place programmes such as health, social protection and financial wellness which targeted an approximate figure of 60,000 people had been successful.

Mr Julius Debrah, Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Tourism Authority, expressed the Authority appreciation to GIZ ReCHT and re-affirmed the commitment to continue the programme with the collaborators.

Source: GNA