Fatima Anafu-Astanga
Bolgatanga, Nov. 27, GNA – A maiden Forum of Directors of the Ghana Hotels Association (GHA) in the Upper East Region has been held in Bolgatanga to assess the growing hospitality industry and to consider key areas such as facilities, customer care and housekeeping issues and assess their facilities and make right choices as they prepared for 2025.
The meeting, which attracted the Regional Directors, was also attended by Mrs Egi Gaisie, Industry Consultant and facilitator and the Director of training/Managing Consultant Reception Academy, Ghana was on the theme: “Keeping abreast with trends in hotel operations for sustained profitability.”
The participants were taken through hotel and lodging operations, best practices for small hotels and accountable hotel management operations.
Mr Louis Tindaan , Regional Chairman of the GHA, in a welcome address to the participants expressed gratitude to members for the excellent performance, especially some of the industry players who received awards in this this year’s Tourism Awards.
He said the hotel industry was a beacon of hope in the tourism sector development in the country as seen in the number of people employed by the hotels and guest houses and the revenues paid to government.
“The association has played key role in shaping the growth and protection of member investment over the years and has valuable alternatives in building the industry whilst making it a dependable partner to the bodies it collaborates with especially the Ghana Tourism Authority (GTA), Ghana National Fire Service, the Environmental Protection Agency
and sponsors as the State Insurance Company (SIC)) , the Assemblies, DSTV., Ash foam among others,” he said.
Mr Tindaan said the Upper East Region was warming up for growth, adding that the hospitality industry would benefit immensely from the completion of the region’s airport.
He appealed to the security agencies and members of the public, especially the feuding factions in Bawku, that insecurity affected the way tourists viewed the industry and its operations and called for peace.
“Peace is all we preach is … Let us give peace a chance and make dialogue the only tool for dispute resolution”. He prayed.
As the Association prepared for its 15th anniversary in 2025, he enjoined more stakeholders to join the association.
Mr Wisdom Ahiadzi, Director of the Ghana Tourism Authority (GTA), in an interview on the sidelines of the meeting, reiterated that for tourism to thrive the attraction must be of top standard for visitors to travel round and patronize.
He said there were many sites being improved, which must go along with good hotels.
He said the GTA was working to improve, particularly the Pikworo slave camp and the Zinga crocodile pond to attract more visitors.
“Our culture is key and comes through festivals and other various ways and how to package all these and present it to the outside world is the GTA’s mandate and we are playing our part. “
He encouraged all Stakeholders to keep to standards to remain in business and that education would help members to improve their services.
Mr Robert Ajene, member of the association, said the forum, the first of its kind, showed the efforts hoteliers were making to serve the country.
GNA