Akwasi Agyeman
The hospitality and tourism industry stakeholders have been educated on effective business management and operational modalities to enable them to maximise the opportunities provided by the Obaatanpa Care programme.
More than 300 participants were drawn from hotels, food and beverage establishments, travel and tour agencies and the leadership of the fashion associations, such as weavers, across the Upper West.
The nationwide training exercise organised by the Ghana Tourism Authority (GTA), under the auspices of the Ministry of Tourism and Creative Arts, was to, among other things, ensure professionalism and enhance the quality of service delivery in the sector.
“We know that digital marketing is very important in this era because of the COVID-19, how do we still make ourselves relevant to the customers without meeting face-to-face,” Mr. Moses Ndewin Ndebugri, the Upper West Regional Director of the GTA, said.
He expressed the hope that the training would help improve their businesses to meet the changing business trends in the sector.
“The COVID-19 pandemic is very devastating to the tourism industry, at the beginning of the pandemic, when we did our survey we realised that about 80 per cent of hotels in the region have to downsize their staff,” Mr. Ndebugri said.
Mr. Apaloo Lolo, a consultant at Total Growth Consultancy, a facilitator at the training, urged the participants to take customer care very seriously in the hospitality industry. “There is no business in this world that can operate without customers. The customer is the king of your business, and therefore, the only way you can get to the kingdom of this customer is to serve him well,” he explained.
According to him, there was the need to sharpen the skills of the tourism sector players to enable them to revamp their businesses and overcome the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.