Gambia

‘Nigerians will soon be rushing to The Gambia’

Written by Austin Jacobson

Friday, 18 February 2011 23:09

Tourism is gradually taking over the economies of most countries in Africa and becoming the highest employer of labour. In this interview, AUSTIN JACOBSON spoke with the Chairman of The Gambia Hotel Association Mr. Alieu Senka, who explained the impact the hospitality sector has made on the tourism industry and other innovations been introduced to boost the sector in The Gambia. Excerpts: What other aspect of attraction is been added to tourism in Gambia? The other aspect of tourism that is been added to the already existing ones is the park life, in particular, we do have 500 species of bird in the Gambia between October to February and at this very moment we are looking forward to welcoming these birds and that is why the Golden Beach Hotel is maintaining its forest habitat so that it will be a natural habitat for these bird. This certainly is one of the aspects that will bring more visitors to the Golden Beach and Gambia. As the chairman of the Gambia Hotel Association what other aspect of hospitality needs to be added to the already spectacular service in existence? This is an ongoing process. Over the years, tourism has been growing in Gambia and we want to improve the standard of service by increasing the quality of service delivery. Also, we at the Gambia Hotel Association and all the stake holders are trying to organize a training session and a refresher course to ensure that the level of service continues. We also have to make sure that our marketing strategy is properly planned and that is one of the reasons why we are pleased to welcome more and more visitors from Nigeria to experience what Europeans that have been coming to Gambia have been experiencing. I am sure there are a lot more things to be discovered from the Gambia and with the feed back we get, we hope to improve on it. What is the GHA doing to further bring other hotels in to the fold and increase the bar of excellence in the sector? As a matter of fact most hotels are members of the Gambia Hotel Association and only the recent hotels that have just come on board are not members.  Due to what we do at the GHA, most hotels want to be part of us, we represent the biggest arm in the sector in the tourism in Gambia and we also have a very effective secretariat that works well and is well recognized, we work efficiently in conjunction with the Gambian government and Gambia tourism authority together with the other stake holders in doing some marketing and other campaigns we do overseas. So we will continue in that process to be relevant and do more for the sector. Economically, what are the stake holders doing to make up for the short falls of the low season that comes with tourism in Gambia? We are working on encouraging Africans to travel during the summer to Gambia. This is because the Europeans, who come around during winter, leave the country once it’s summer time in Europe. At this period the hotels are vacant for Africans to use. Hence we are hoping to have our own African brothers come and spend vacation in Gambia. As you will also know Africans do not travel much but we intend to use the various aspects which include culture, costumes and other African background to stimulate travels by Africans to make for this short falls in the summer. We are also working on making Nigerians and other Africans to discover and come to Gambia, discover and enjoy all these things the Europeans have been enjoying particularly Africans that travel during this period.