Redefine Ghanaian hospitality - Mensah Ansah

Accra, Dec. 14, GNA - Mr Joseph Mensah Ansah, Director for Hospitality at the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA), on Thursday urged people in the hospitality industry to establish a common understanding of what is understood by Ghanaian hospitality.

He said it was important to identify common elements in the Ghanaian hospitality industry for it to have a composite definition. Mr Mensah Ansah was speaking at a day's forum aimed at addressing issues of public/private partnership in the tourism industry to facilitate capacity building for stakeholders and boost the industry. The forum was divided into five working groups with participants drawn from all sectors of the tourism industry and research on Finance, Human Resource Development, Marketing and Promotion, Policy and Product development

Mr Ansah, whose group addressed human resource development, said there was lack of customer care in the hospitality industry and called for structured hospitality training. "We need standardized training modules for all hospitality institutions, as currently every hospitality institution goes by its own module."

Mrs Stella Appenteng, President of the Ghana Tourism Federation, said players in the industry needed constant training no matter the position they held.

This would enable them to do things professionally and that it was necessary for practitioners to be part of the public private partnership forum.

The Public Private Partnership forum on the theme: "The Ghana Tourism Development Project for Strengthening Public-Private Partnership (PPP)" is a joint project by the Sector Ministry and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). The PPP project expected to be completed in January 2009 begun last February when five JICA experts came to Ghana to work with the Sector Ministry to establish the Public-Private Partnership Forum (PPPF). 14 Dec. 06