Packaged in partnership with the African Tourism Research Network (ATRN), the training is being conducted by African Skills Hub with support from the ILO’s Global Program on Skills and Lifelong Learning/SKILL UP Ghana Component, which is an ILO initiative in Collaboration with the Commission for Technical and Vocational Education and Training and funded by the Norwegian Agency for Development.

Ms. Vanessa Lareto Phala, ILO Country Director for Ghana, Nigeria, Liberia and Sierra Leone and the Liaison for ECOWAS, noted that as part of its core mandate, the ILO was poised to collaborate with the Government of Ghana and key stakeholder institutions to support, train and build capacities of constituents in various sectors of the economy to create decent and sustainable jobs especially for the youth and women.

Mr. Frank Kwasi Adetor, the National Project Coordinator of ILO’s Global Programme on Skills and Lifelong Learning, reiterated the pivotal role digital marketing and social media skills could play in promoting and sustaining businesses especially in the post COVID19 era.

He admonished the two trade associations to take full advantage of the training by impacting the knowledge and skills acquired to others who could not participate in this session.

“You can only succeed in transcending the boarders of Ghana by conforming to and upholding international standards in your business operations.” Mr Adetor added.

Mr Emmanuel Frimpong, Founding President, ATRN, noted that digitization and credible data played a critical role in the tourism and hospitality sectors.

He said, “over 80 per cent of players in the sector are informal yet they play a critical role in creating decent jobs for the youth and women, therefore it is important you are trained to take advantage of the benefits of social media marketing.”

He called on other development partners and organisations to partner with ATRN to train more informal sector workers in the tourism, hospitality, and travel sectors in areas where they lacked the needed skills and thanked the ILO for their support over the years.

Ashanti Regional Director, Ghana Tourism Authority, Mr Frederick Adjei-Rudolph, asked participants to acknowledge and accept the role digitization and social media played in their work and take advantage of the workshop to improve on their work while benefiting from the opportunities on the social media platforms.

He said, “if you sit back and watch without taking advantage of digitization, your jobs will be gone in no time.”
Mr Adjei-Rudolph assured the participants that his outfit was always ready to give them the needed support and pledged to partner ATRN and other entities which were ready to support the sector in building capacities.

Dr Patricia Owusu-Darko, President, Institute Hospitality (IH) Ghana, and former Dean of Graduate Studies at the Kumasi Technical University and a Food Scientist, took the trainees through essentials of food preservation and the dangers of not preserving food well.