Akwasi Agyemang
The Ghana Tourism Authority (GTA) in partnership with Ghana Airports Company Limited (GACL) has held a sensitization workshop on operational guidelines for tour operators and stakeholders in the hospitality industry following the reopening of the Kotoka International Airport (KIA).
The workshop was to enlighten the stakeholders on the need to adopt strict measures and abide by the preventive guidelines issued by the government.
Speaking at the workshop, Mr. Alex Boakye, Manager, Standards and Quality Assurance, GTA, asked hotels to have on-call doctors and prepare well-ventilated rooms for clients.
He also encouraged them to use alcohol-based sanitizers for surfaces not suitable for the use of bleach and stressed that clients should have their luggage disinfected before they were checked-in.
Mr. Victor Sosu Gakpey, Operations Manager, GACL, on his part, also said measures had been put in place for passengers on arrivals to go through, including taking samples of passengers for testing before leaving the airport.
He urged operators of tourist sites to observe social distancing, wear nose masks, provide hand washing stations and turn away visitors who did not adhere to the Covid-19 protocols.
Mr. Gakpe asked them to take full details of visitors before allowing them access to the sites for easy contacting and that organizing of events at tourist sites should be done with strict adherence to all Covid-19 safety protocols.
“‘No face mask, no entry’ should be at entrances of sites, event capacity should be reduced to 50 per cent, social distancing and also hand washing stations should be provided at vantage points of the centres,” he stressed.
Mr. Akwesi Agyemang, Chief Executive Officer of the GTA, said the tourism industry had been the hardest hit by Covid-19 but hopefully it would bounce back with the easing of restrictions.