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Mrs Elizabeth Ofosu-Adjare, Minister of Tourism, Culture and the Creative Arts, has advocated closer collaboration between Africa and its European partners to accelerate tourism investment and development. 

Mrs Ofosu-Adjare made the call at the 35th edition of the FITUR International Tourism Fair ongoing at Feria de Madrid in Spain.

In a release issued to Ghana News Agency on Friday in Accra, she said although African solutions should be found to solve African challenges, expert technical support and partnerships from developed economies are equally crucial.

She said Ghana has set the pace of utilising continental human resources by approaching Kenya to assist in the transformation of the Hotel, Tourism and Catering Training Institute (HOTCATT).

Mrs Ofosu-Adjare said she welcomes European partnership and support to facilitate the process.

She said a 15 - year National Tourism Development Plan is being implemented to put premium on research and human capital development among others.

In pursuit of this, she said Ghana is in the process of transforming HOTCATT into a National Hospitality Academy to help improve industry human resource capacity and standards.

“Ghana has commenced a process to train about 10,000 lower to middle level manpower to improve service delivery,” she said.

She said although there are unemployed graduates all over Africa, there seem to be deficits in human capacity in the hospitality industry.

She said sharing of experiences and success models, diversification of product offerings, and value addition could help address the industry's human resource needs.

There could also be some intensive short courses and training programmes for unemployed graduates who want to pursue hospitality as a profession.

FITUR is a global meeting point for tourism professionals and the leading trade fair for inbound and outbound Ibero American markets.

Statistics indicate that in 2014 9,083 exhibiting companies from 165 countries or regions, 120,231 trade participants and 97,549 people, met during FITUR to transform leisure into business and business into development.