By Yunus S Saliu
The Director General of Tourism Board (GTBoard) has expressed a better future for tourism sector at the end of the deadly Covid-19 pandemic which is spreading fast across the world.
Abdoulie Hydara, Director General of the GTBoard and his team Tuesday visited different hotels, stakeholders and investors across the tourism development area (TDA) to have first hand information about the present situation amidst of the outbreak Coronavirus pandemic.
DG Hydara responding to questions said he is very optimistic that the tourism in the country will back to its glorious days soon after Covid-19 pandemic.
He expressed that he is “very optimistic taking into consideration that the country was able to overcome past crises that hindered the boom of the sector such as previous ban on casinos and gambling centers, Ebola Virus epidemic, December 1 2016 impasse, the collapse of Thomas Cook airlines which we were able to bridge the gap and now this Covid-19 pandemic.”
He quickly added that after the coronavirus pandemic “we will come out bigger and better,” he assured.
After the visit to some of the hotels across the TDA he confirmed that all hotels in the country are empty “but the intention of the visit is to look at the entire industry to have first hand information on present situations as regarding to our guests/tourists, stakeholders, investors in the industry so that we can share their situation, sympathise and show solidarity to them.”
While calling out for support, he said “tourism is very sensitive, fragile and we need support, and encouragement while all hands should be on deck to bring back the industry to its glorious days.
Among other reasons for visiting was to have meetings with stakeholders and investors to strengthening their hopes. “We already put in good plans for the coming season and we are hopeful that it is not going to be a long period of time to get out of the Covid-19 pandemic,” DG Hydara said with hope.
The Director General dilated on the contribution of the sector to the country’s economy in term of GDP, job creations and employments, foreign exchange among others.
He noted that the industry “have 42,000 people benefited from direct employment in the industry and if you quantify other indirect employments in the industry is very substantial giving per capita in term of the population.”
He went further that the industry constitutes 18 to 20 per cent of the GDP while emphasized that before the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic his institution was working on the “satellite account to establish the true empirical data that is going to inform us the true contribution of tourism to GDP because according to the forecast it is between 20 and 25 per cent.” Meaning the GTBoard estimation is lower than the actual contribution but will be disclosed soon after the coronavirus pandemic is over.
