Koforidua, July 14, GNA - Mr Samuel Donkor, Eastern Regional Director of Ghana Tourist Board (GTB), has advocated for a structured human resource development programme to tackle the dearth of qualified personnel in Ghana's hospitality industry likely to affect its global competitiveness.

He said Ghana's ability to remain a competitive tourist destination was being hampered by the lack of integrated and well structured human resource development programme to train requisite personnel needed to man sensitive positions in the industry. "The current situation is that the only tourism public sector training institute lacks the requisite capacity and the logistics to train the hospitality staff to demonstrate the high level of professionalism needed to provide quality services and make Ghana competitive," he said.

Addressing the 21st graduation ceremony of Liberty Specialist Institute in Koforidua at the weekend, Mr Donkor was emphatic that the growth and survival of Ghana's hospitality industry would partly hinge on the industry's ability to meet the needs of customers by professionally astute personnel.

"To be able to meet the expectation of our modern sophisticated customers and remain in competition with other tourism countries in the world, Ghana has no alternative than to provide high quality customer service within a clean and hygienic environment," he emphasized. Mr Donkor said to overcome the dire situation in the Eastern Region and help improve services to clients, GTB was collaborating with the institute to offer mid-semester short courses for workers who had been engaged, but had no requisite training.

Naval Captain B.F. Asante, Director of Naval Training, Ghana Armed Forces, urged the students to be disciplined and refrain from indulging in deviant acts that could affect their future. Naval Captain Asante inaugurating a cadet corps for the institute called on the students to be focused in life and resist peer pressure and the strong urge to experiment on everything published or broadcasted in the media. Reverend (Mrs) Edna Ametameh, Director of the Institute, appealed for support to procure computers to ensure the training of high-level career focused skilled manpower to support the country's industrial growth.

Mrs Ametameh commended authorities of University of Southern California, USA and African Millennium Foundation, which were working in partnership with the institute to assist graduating students establish themselves as entrepreneurs. The 88 graduating students took courses in intermediate and advanced catering, food and beverage services, fashion and designing.