I am one of those who firmly believe that tourism can be a serious game changer for Ghana. Not as a slogan. Not as a conference theme. But as a real, hard-currency, job-creating, value-chain-expanding sector that could easily grow into a ten-billion-dollar industry if we got our priorities right.
But let us be brutally honest: as the sector stands today, tourism will not save our economy. It will embarrass it.
The biggest constraint is not marketing. It is not branding. It is not infrastructure. It is skills. Or more accurately, the painful absence of skills.
Across much of the country, especially outside Accra, tourism services are shockingly substandard. Poor food. Poor service. Poor management. Poor understanding of what hospitality actually means. Everywhere you go, the same tired menu. The same boring Spanish omelette. Kitchen staff and sometimes even owners cannot tell the difference between a sunny-side-up egg and scrambled eggs. This is not a joke. This is reality.
You cannot build a serious tourism economy on amateurism.
Tourism is a service industry driven by human competence: culinary skills, front-of-house service, hotel management, operations, standards, attention to detail, consistency. These are learned skills, not wishful thinking.
If government is serious about tourism, then it must be serious about skills. Intentionally, aggressively, at scale.
Two practical policy paths must be pursued.
First, send thousands of capable young Ghanaians abroad for rigorous hospitality training. Proper, accredited programs in culinary arts, hotel operations, restaurant management, pastry, butchery, service excellence, and tourism management. Trainees should be bonded and deployed back into the local industry, raising standards across hotels, restaurants, resorts, and lodges.
Second, partner with the private sector to establish world-class hospitality and culinary training institutions in Ghana. Not token vocational centres. Real schools. Short courses and full-duration programs. Facilities that mirror professional kitchens and hotels. Curricula designed with industry input. Experienced instructors, including top global visiting chefs, who teach, mentor, and set standards.
Until we accept that truth, we will continue to overpromise and underdeliver. Tourists will come once, complain quietly, and never return. Jobs will remain low-value. Revenues will stay thin. And the dream of tourism as a major economic pillar will remain just that, a dream.
We cannot develop tourism without intentionally developing the skills that drive it. Anything else is self-deception served with a side of cold omelette.
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