CEANING AND HYGIENE WORKSHOP HELD IN HO (PAGE 22, MAY 7, 2010)

THE Managing Director of Cleaning Solutions Limited, Mr Kofi Ankama-Asamoah, has underscored the essence of high standards of hygiene in the hospitality industry to motivate tourists to revisit tourist facilities in the country.
He said the target to achieve one million tourists into the country by the end of the first decade of the millennium could not be achieved unless a sacred approach was adopted towards good sanitation culture in tourism related infrastructure and services.
Mr Ankama-Asamoah’s address was read on his behalf by the Head of Business Development of the company, Mr Paul Ambenne, at the opening ceremony of a cleaning and hygiene workshop for selected workers of hotels and restaurants in Ho.
He said hotels, drinking spots, eating joints, arts and crafts shops and tours abound in every corner and along the roads throughout the country, adding that the quality of services rendered at some of these facilities were below international standards.
Mr Ankama-Asamoah said what was still below expectation was the quality of human resource servicing the hospitality industry.
He added that with about 10,000 staff in the industry, only five per cent had formal education in their chosen or employed fields and that only 20 per cent were given further training or maintenance in their careers.
He said the industry was a dynamic one with changing trends and requirements of tourists keep changing with time, adding that one measure was to ensure that the necessary services were made available to the expectation of tourists in order to make them revisit the facility again.
Mr Ankama-Asamoah argued that the most favourable sector for investment for a long term is the hospitality industry because it would register increased employment far more than in the oil industry and that it was cheaper to invest in the hospitality industry and get higher returns than in the oil industry.
In a welcoming address, the Volta Regional Manager of the Ghana Tourist Board (GTB), Mr Charles Obeng also said hygiene was crucial to the success of the hospitality industry and noted that as of now, the standard of cleaning was very poor.
He said 400 employees in the hospitality industry had been targeted for the workshop in the Hohoe, Keta, Denu, Aflao zones, adding that the issues at stake bothered on the lack of skills in cleaning or that management had failed to provide the tools for cleaning.
Mr Obeng urged the participants to upgrade their skills and go back to train others at their workplaces.