Accra, Aug. 20, GNA - Mr Martin Mireku, Acting Executive Director of Ghana Tourist Board (GTB), on Wednesday expressed concern about the falling standards in the hospitality industry. He said a monitoring team during unannounced visits to hotels and other hospitality facilities to assess their operations realized that they were operating below standards.

"Some of their operations did not conform to acceptable standards," Mr Mireku said at a workshop organised by GTB to discuss the falling standards in the industry and the way forward. He expressed concern, especially about the manner food was handled in most of the restaurants and noted that more than 250 diseases were food-borne while most diseases were food related. Mr Mireku said recognition of the strong correlation between food safety, health and development had made food safety management one of the most crucial subjects in both international and national circles and one of the core principles of the nation's health policy. He said periodic training for caterers were some of the proactive measures to improve the knowledge on food safety management. Mr Mireku urged stakeholders in the industry to always make quality service delivery and products their yardstick and priority since costumers required value for their monies and the sector survived on repeated visits.

Mr Edwin Owusu Mensah, Operations Director of GTB, 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 has its own module. This would enable the industry to operate professionally," he said.

Mr Owusu Mensah called on stakeholders to pay attention to unacceptable practices such as water leakage, electrical shocks, security issues and correct these practices. He noted that the industry was lagging behind in the marketing of tourism products and called on stakeholders in the industry to introduce innovative marketing programmes to attract more tourists into the country.