By Muyid Deen Suleman
Kumasi, April 28 GNA – Mr Mark Okraku Mantey, Deputy Minister for Tourism, Arts and Culture has stressed the need to recognize commercial drivers as key stakeholders in tourism development and promotion.
He said it was time to give a critical attention to the professional and ethical training of commercial drivers to ensure that they acted in conformity with international driving standards.
This would help position them well to compete with other nations and strengthen their roles effectively in the tourism ecosystem and contribute to the tourism value chain.
Mr Mantey was speaking at the launch of the tourism product knowledge training of trainers’ project for some selected commercial drivers in Kumasi, at the Kwame Nkrumah Uni
The training project is to provide basic versatile knowledge of the use of pedagogic methods of driving among drivers across the nation.
The project is targeting about 3,000 drivers this year and had the opportunity to increase the numbers in subsequent years.
It is being funded by the World Bank, through the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture.
Mr Mantey pointed out that the core message throughout the skills driving training would be conceptualized as a broad set of skills that would be used by drivers as their goals and motives.
He advised participants to interact professionally with tourists who patronized their services and urged them to add more value to their services to contribute meaningfully to the economic development of the country.
Professor Gabriel Eshun, Technical Advisor at Ghana Tourism Development Company (GTDC) asked the participants to use the capacity building training for the betterment of their personal service development.
GNA