Recruitment Practices and Performance in the Tourism Industry of Ghana: A Comparative Study of Selected Small and Medium Hotels

Abstract

Performance efficiency of the tourism sector has been an area of concern for both the government as well as the public in Ghana. Ministry of Tourism, Ghana Tourist Authority and other stakeholders have been stressing on the need to hire qualified employees to work in the various sectors of the tourism industry to perform services to international standard. Since the Government of Ghana in its economic development plans aims to make tourism its number one foreign exchange earner by the year 2015. However, previous research confirms that, the achievement of Ghana’s tourism development plan depend on the quality and competences of the human resources in the hotel sector, since they form the key part in the delivery of the tourism product. Though Ghana tourism education has been developed for the past 20 years, there exists a big gap between supply and demand for quality managers, supervisors and operative staff within the tourism industry. In addition, small and medium-sized hotels are highly patronised by visitors yet received relatively little research attention in Ghana. Therefore, the study sought to examine recruitment practices in selected medium hotels and compare the trend and practices in small hotels. A mixed-methodological approach via interviews and
Questionnaire surveys were used for the study. Data for the study were collected from four hundred and twenty seven (427) employees who worked in the various sections of the hotels. Results from regression to test the association among the variables reveals that recruitment practices in small and medium hotels have significant influence on employee performance. In addition, the percentage of variance in employees’ attitude was most significantly influenced by recruitment strategies adopted by employers in the selected hotels in Ghana. The paper recommends that the shortfall in recruitment practices in the selected hotels could be addressed if hotel organizations developed recruitment strategies that incorporate diverse range of sources to reach quality applicants in the required target market of Ghana.