Tourism has been one of Gambia’s main sources of revenue and a major foreign exchange earner. It has also contributed in various ways to the social and economic development of the country.
In recent years the sector has been experiencing steady growth thanks to the innovative promotional tools being applied to attract more tourists into country by the GTA, the Tourism Department, tour operators, hoteliers and other stakeholders in the industry.

As the winter tourist season approaches, The Point spoke to the man in charge of tourism matters in The Gambia, Mr Kaliba Senghore, Managing Director of Gambia Tourism Authority (GTA).

The Point: Could you mention some statistics regarding tourism in The Gambia, or have there been any noticeable developments in recent years?

Mr Kaliba Senghore: In terms of numbers, I think the numbers are growing steadily. I think there has been a good increase in 2003, but a drop in 2004 and another increase in 2005 by 21%. Every year the numbers are growing and we hope that it will significantly increase in the coming years.

The Point: Is this as a result of the promotion you are doing abroad?

KS: Yes, we are doing a lot of promotion together with our partners, stakeholders as well as the tour operators overseas. Our main means of promotion is attending trade fairs. We attend trade fairs in all the major source markets.

The Point: Which are the countries you mostly target?

KS: Well, as it is now, our main source markets are the United Kingdom, which is more than 50% of the share, but in terms of targeting, if I go by your word, we are targeting the Dutch market, Holland; we are targeting Spain, but now we are more into the German market, which we had a lot over the years, as well as the Nordic countries, Sweden, Denmark and Finland.
So you can see that we are moving, by attending all the fairs. Next month we will be attending two markets: the Neckermann Market in Germany, Frankfurt, and then from there we move over to London to attend the World Travel. So at last we attempt to enter a new market, the Italian market - we have not been getting much of Italians. We hope that this year - this coming season - we will be able to tap the Italian market by attending the trades that are there.

The Point: Besides being present in the trade fairs, do you use any other marketing tools, like TV spots or radio spots or other promotional means?

KS: I am sure you must have heard of the famous CNN Sight and Sound that we have been into. I think that has really put Gambia on the world map. Most people, from the feedback we had, have never heard of The Gambia or have never seen Gambia on TV.

The Point: How are you promoting The Gambia: as a sunshine destination or as a country of culture?

KS: Well, we are well known for the three “S” – the sand, the sea and the sun. Now that we are known for that and there is a lot of competition, not only in the sub-region but also in other markets that have the same things to offer.
If you hear the ‘smiling coast’, it has two connotations: smiling coast is showing Gambia as it is on the map. If you look at the map of Africa, especially of West Africa, that part of Gambia shows you that we are smiling. And the other part of it, is the real thing: you are smiling (looking at Matty Njie).
You are a Gambian, so you can see that beauty about it. I am not saying that we are different than other countries but the amount of hospitality you will get here and the amount of friendship you build here. We are losing that in the greater Banjul area - that element of hospitality - but if you go up country, you will see that Gambian hospitality is second to none in Africa.
So I think we need to go into cultural tourism, we need to begin on telling people how our wedding ceremonies take place, our naming ceremonies, the funerals and also the traditions we have by virtue of the different ethnic groups. We have the rights of passage and that’s why we are now promoting the Roots Festival.

The Point: I asked the question because you just said that you are targeting Spain and Italy. And these countries are really known for sunshine and nice beaches.

KS: If you are looking for a holiday spot you hardly go to your country. Normally you wouldn’t’ t mind to move from one corner of the country to the other, but if you have other alternatives you would want to look for something different.
The Italians are highly cultural and they like to see community based tourism, they like to live with the people. Community based tourism means that people will move away from the conventional tourism development area and go and live with the communities, see how they live, interact with them for a week or two, and then at least have a feel of Africa.

The Point: In Holland there has been a campaign done by the Postcode Lottery using the graphics of a Gambian woman with the tie-dye on the head, or with bananas on the head and a child behind. Was that done in collaboration with the GTA?

KS: As I said, apart from doing our own marketing, people use many ways of doing this. The tour operators do their own promotion; the hoteliers do their own promotion, they prepare their own brochures, they call the TV broadcasters.

The Point: What is the role of GTA in all this process?

KS: What we do at our level here is to organize farm trips. We always try to encourage people to come and give their own version of what they think about Gambia. We believe that the tour operators have their own agenda, in fact they are taking the best part of the cake and we want to make sure the money generated from tourism stays here.
It is a big challenge in the tourism world. If you have seen the impact of tourism in some destinations, you will not worry about numbers as much as you say when the numbers increase the money increases.
Sometimes apart from money increasing, there are other things that increase: like you have vices, bad vices, prostitution increases, theft, alcoholism, and all those bad vices go along with tourism.
And this is all about mass tourism. If you look at Gambia, and by virtue of our size, I would prefer to have less tourists who will come and spend more money, who will come and be philanthropists, who will look forward to come back.

The Point: We have noticed that you are working at the national level as well, and we refer here to the talks broadcast on the radio.

KS: Before the tourist season starts, before the winter season starts, we invite all the stakeholders at the national level: the Europeans and the Gambians and everybody working in the tourism industry come and sit down with the ministry and myself and we talk about the future.
This time I think we went a little bit high profile when it has been captured on the radio. We discussed what has passed over the last season so that we are able to decipher the problems that have emerged last year, whether they are security problems, whether they are promotional problems, marketing problems, whatever problem they have. So we invited the hoteliers, the tour operators - even some bumsters were there.

The Point: We heard the radio commercial asking Gambians to be hospitable towards the tourists. How effective do you think the spots have been or will be?

KS: We have discovered, according to the statistics in a study, that sixty-nine per cent of the tourists [who visit The Gambia each season] will not come back because of the hassle.
Now when this came out, it became a problem, and then during the consultation that took place last year, we decided that it was necessary to create a security and sensitization committee.
And one of the recommendations of the committee was to go on public awareness based on sensitization. And then I said one of the easiest ways to reach out to the people is through the radio.

The Point: What kind of actions are you taking to reduce the bumsing in The Gambia?

KS: What we have been doing at the national level is transforming some of the bumsters into civilized human beings again. And that’s why I brought the official tourist guide into the picture.
We trained 90 of them and then they became responsible; we organized them and they have started working as official tourist guides. And at least, with the statistics we have, some of them have been able to go to Europe and in Europe some of them are working for the UN Peace Keeping Force, others are working in different fields, one of them is a doctor now.
You can see that they are not very bad, it’s just that when you meet one or two and you have a bad experience… because one bad experience in tourism can spoil twenty good potential visitors.

The Point: You said that the percentage of tourists increased in 2005 by 21%. Do you have any estimation for this year, for the coming season?

KS: We do our projections through the tour operators. We are yet to get the final figures but all indications are that it will be good. Let me just give one country as an example, Finland.
I was in Helsinki in July and I had the chance to talk to the commercial director of My Travel Scandinavia and with the figures we had for Scandinavia, Finland, overall was only 900 tourists. The projections for this year… a staggering 5,500. You can see that there alone is a 500% increase for one market.

The Point: What do you think triggers this increase?

KS: It’s marketing again in combination with the shift from the movement of tourists from a few countries such as Egypt and Indonesia, due to a lot of terrorist attacks. Besides, people are looking for short flights to their holiday destinations.
We are going to have a direct flight from Finland to The Gambia - that has never been there; from Germany, Condor has increased their flights not only during the winter but also in the summer. We are looking at least at three extra flights; we used to have two.