The Director for International Programs and Institutional Collaboration at the Tamale Technical University, Dr Adisa Sadiq has observed that Ghana Tourism industry is becoming uncompetitive in West Africa because of unqualified staff engaged in the sector.
Most of these unqualified personnel Dr Adisa noted act unprofessionally in dealing with customers or tourist.
Their activities the lecturer added tend to reduce clients base of the sector.
The industry she observed must be occupied by graduates who specialized in the sector to fill-in what she described as a big gap between the industry and educational institutions.
Competitiveness in tourism, Dr Adisa explained do not only depends on availability of tourism resources and hotels offering, but properly and adequately educated personnel and managers.
Tourism, she added is not just about visiting tourist sites but the needed human resource must be at the sites to provide accurate information to tourists about the historical artifacts and the country.
Dr Adisa expressed concerned about the Ghana focusing so much on international tourism to the detriment of local tourism.
Delivery a topic; Relevance of Tourism Education at TaTU Hospitality and Tourism Management Department seminar on Thursday, Dr Adisa noted that personal education and professional development in the industry is key in addressing challenges confronting tourism sector.
Globally, tourism has become the largest industry with nearly 500 million consumers of tourism services annually spending billions of dollars. The industry according to World Tourism
Organization, (WTO) 2010 employed over 100 million worldwide.
Dr Adisa noted that Ghana has huge tourism potential and that potential can only be useful to Ghana if the need attentions given to it.
Senior lecture at University for Development Studies (UDS) Ecotourism and environmental management Dr Raymond Adongo said the only way to address the big gap between the industry and educational institutions is collaboration.
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