By Sailu Bah A new five star hotel will start operating in the Gambia this year. The name of the Hotel is ‘Flourish Hotel resort’, located at Palma Rima after Dunes hotel. This was confirmed during a press briefing at the New Hotel with the Management and Staff of the Hotel on Tuesday, 25th November 2014. Fatima Sillah, Marketing Manager, Corporate Affairs officer, said Flourish Hotel Resort is owned by Mr. Felix Osuji, a Nigerian National, and its Managing Director is a South African named Mr. Geeg Woodside. She said the building of the Hotel started last year, and the hotel was built by Local Gambian Contractors. She said they have very good marketing strategies in place to make sure that people have come on board to the hotel. She said though Ebola is a challenge for them, they together with their outside partners are trying very hard to make people come on board. “We have something special to sell to our customers, and we also have other partners within Africa, such as Morroco, Nigeria, Ghana and other places,” explained Fatima Sillah, Marketing Manager, Corporate Affairs officer. Geeg Woodside, a South African who is the Managing Director of the new hotel said that the Hotel is a classic with standard accommodation. He said that they will have a lot of challenges this season, because of a lot of competitors as well as Ebola discouraging tourists to come to the Gambia. Mr. Woodside said that they have strategies to make sure that these things are settled. “We have built a tar road which connects the hotel to the Main Palma Rima road down to the highway. We are expecting to have a great footballer from Nigeria namely; Kanu Nwankwo and this is part of our strategies to sell the hotel,” he told his audience. Mr. Woodside said they are expecting to do the official opening in early or late December, 2014. ]]>