The Ministry of Tourism in partnership with CraftPro Limited, a private company in the hospitality sector, will this year train and employ ten thousand of the country’s youth in the hospitality industry. Under a skills development programme, the project is aimed at promoting efficient implementation of the project over a two year period. Out-going Minister of Tourism, Akua Sena Dansua, says the project fits “into the ministry’s human resource policy objective of building capacity of Ghanaians to take advantage of emerging opportunities in the tourism sector, whilst fulfilling the goals of the Ghana Shared Growth and Development Agenda and the Tourism Act 817 aimed at job creation, income generation and poverty reduction through sustainable development of the tourism sector.” Ms. Akua Dansua told newsmen she is confident the exercise will improve the poor service conditions existing in most of the country’s tourisms hotspots. Despite the poor service delivery, the sector also saw an improvement in terms of arrivals for last year from 821,200 in 2011 to 903,300 in 2012 with corresponding receipts from US$1,548.3 Billion to US$1,704.7. She said the successful implementation of the project requires collaboration between her office and other state agencies and departments whose activities relate directly with the “human resource capacity building development objectives.” “It is against this backdrop that a steering committee and a monitoring and Evaluation Committee have been set up to guide the implementation process to ensure that the desired objectives are achieved in a cost-effective and timely manner,” she said.