The Minister of Tourism, Arts and Culture, Dr. Ibrahim Mohammed Awal, has urged the Ghana Hotels Association to help government achieve its jobs target.
Government expects the tourism sector to create some 150,000 jobs annually, as part of efforts to make more jobs available for the teeming youth.
According to the World Travel and Tourism Council, three out of every 10 jobs are created in the tourism sector. To this end, Dr. Awal is confident that if stakeholders collaborate and employ pragmatic measures in their operations, this dream can be realised – especially when available data from the Ghana Statistical Service indicate that about 1.76 million persons were unemployed in the third quarter of 2022.
The minister also tasked hoteliers to source products locally and explore partnerships to boost economic growth.
“I want to urge you to help government create 150,000 jobs per annum. Also, help us to be the avenue for tourism, culture and music. When people come to your hotels, entertain them with our cultural troupes and music from our musicians. Create experiences for our visitors; that is how you sell culture and unearth creativity,” he advised.
He said this at the Ghana Hotels Association’ (GHA) third National Executive Council (NEC) meeting 2023, held in Accra on the theme ‘Sustaining the hotel industry in Ghana post COVID-19’.
“Ghana is one of the 13 countries identified this year as best places to visit in the world. And if we do not hold public-private partnership discussions, how do we iron-out our differences and look at the way forward? We need to meet halfway to make this sector the best in West Africa.
“Also, let us have your plan and government will support you on how to build 100,000 hotel rooms over the next 10 years. Let us have a blueprint that creates 10,000 hotel rooms every year and we will support you,” he added.
He also assured that more grants will be made available to support the hospitality space, and that conversations are underway to check the excessive tax concerns.
“Last year, we gave US$10million to support tourism, art and culture. We know that is not enough because the pandemic has affected us; so we intend to support the sector more in terms of grants to keep your operations running,” he assured.
For his part, Chief Executive Officer-Hospitality Plus Limited, Dr. Joseph Mensah-Ansah, noted that: “The tourism and hospitality industry needs much more practical attention and support than it is receiving now if we are to meet our target as a major foreign exchange earner for our dear country, and also recover post-pandemic”.
He added that the hospitality industry’s sustainability demands factors such as quality of utility services and charges, availability of quality manpower, access to financial support and plurality of ever-increasing taxes and levies must be checked.
He also recommended the adoption of digitisation to enhance the efficiency and operations of facilities within the industry.
Dr. Mensah-Ansah advocated for sustainable operations on all fronts spanning environment, utilities and waste management.
“The proposed National Tourism and Hospitality School has been on the drawing board since 1991. It is past time to begin its establishment if we are to improve the quality of our services,” he added.
The Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture (MoTAC) and Ghana Tourism Authority (GTA) have set an international tourist arrivals target of 1.2 million visitors for the 2023 operational year, in addition to 1.2 million domestic tourists.
