By Assan Bah
The Managing Director (MD) of the Gambia Tourism Board, Mr Abubacarr Camara, said his agency is ‘very much’ concerned about the queuing that is caused by the airport tax.
He said this in a press conference held on Wednesday, 9 October 2024, while responding to a question asked by a journalist as to whether the airport tax has impacted on the number of tourists coming into the Gambia.
Camara said he understands that the issue remains a concern for the people. On the issue of the tax payment, he said it is a policy of the government and he would not make comments about it. He added that the best thing to do is reduce the congestion created by the tax at the airport.
“We understand that a lot of people have raised concerns about it, but it is a government policy and the best thing we can do as a board is to reduce the congestion or queueing caused by the tax at the airport. We are very much concerned about the queueing that the airport tax is creating. I know that some of our tourists do complain about it,” he said.
DG Camara was also asked what measures they are taking in order to compete with other tourist destinations. He said they can always reach those levels, but the country has some reservations due to religion and cultural beliefs. He added that some countries are accepting all-inclusive tourists unlike the Gambia.
“It is not that some tourists are not coming here because they hate the destination. We are a religious country with Muslims and Christians unlike other countries even though some have Muslims and Christians, but they operate all kinds of tourism. We are very cautious in marketing our destination because of the nature of our country, we want to promote responsible tourism,” he said.
He was asked questions about diversification of tourism. Camara said it will require partnership and collaboration with other institutions in terms of certain products or assets.
“People, however, misconstrue a product and an asset, we have lots of tourism assets which are not products because they have not been transformed into products. We have over 122 tourism historical sites and a lot of forest parks and wildlife areas, but we need partners to help us transform these assets into products. We have very good assets that are tangible and intangible,” he said.
He further said: “Tourism is even more interesting away from the beach area. Where you have different types of assets – where you have different types of cultures. We have a lot of community forest parks, national forest parks that can be transformed – we can work together to transform them into tourism products.”
“We have over one hundred and eighty (180) tangible cultural products such as the stone circle, James Island, Mungo Pack etc. There is a need to do a lot of changes to transform them. In terms of intangible cultural heritage like organizing festivals,” he said.
The Managing Director was reminded about the promise of the former Minister of Tourism regarding building ten 5-star hotels in the regions.
“It is possible to have that achieved. What is stopping from achieving this, if we have investment,” he said.
“The policy direction is to promote four 5-star hotels. His wish was to encourage Gambian investors to come and invest. We are making everything possible to have that achieved,” he said.
When asked about the stalled construction of eco lodges, he said the contract could not be completed until now due to the unreliability of the contractor. He explained that the project was supposed to fully pre-finance, but the contractor failed to fulfil his commitment.
“I would definitely want to patronise some Gambian contractors, but some of them are not reliable as this one is an example of it. As we speak, there is a strategy that the Ministry is improvising to complete these lodges. As far as I know the delay is from the contractor because as per the documents I inherited as a DG, there was a timeframe that these projects were supposed to be completed,” he said.9
Another issue which was brought to the attention of the GT Board DG was the challenges Gambians faced in accessing beach sites during the tourist season as it was alleged that some security personnel do restrict locals from entering the beaches during the season.
On the issue of the security stopping Gambians from accessing the beaches for exercise or party, the managing director said he was not aware of that issue. He was told that the security personnel do stop Gambians from accessing the beaches.
“The security are only asked to stop scrupulous Gambians from entering the tourist sites – not anyone else. Anyone who is stopped by any security for genuinely visiting the beach can call 1030,” he said.
