By Yunus S Saliu
Minister of Tourism and Culture has Thursday embarked on the annual tourism facilities tour to all TDA across the country.
The tourism facilities tour is meant to inspect ongoing tourism projects across the regions and more especially, to get more information on the impact of Covid-19 as it affected the sector and stakeholders in the destination.
Minister of Tourism and Culture, Honorable Hamat NK Bah is accompanied on this tour by some high rank officials from the Ministry which includes Mrs Cordu L Jabang-Senghore, Permanent Secretary, Mr Mamadi Dampha, Deputy Permanent secretary, regional governors, the board chairpersons of National Centre for Arts and Culture (NCAC), Gambia Tourism Board (GTBoard) and Gambia Tourism and Hospitality Institute (GTHI). Others include officials of the Ministry, GTBoard, GTHI, NCAC and members of travel and tour writers.
As this year tourism facilities tour, which started from the North Bank Region proceeds, the Minister and members of his entourage will visit over 200 tourism facilities across the destination within ten days. Among them include sites, camps, lodges and tourism projects which include DK Jawara Resort – Barra, Kunkiling Forest Eco Lodge Central River Region, Sotuma Eco Lodge – Upper River Region, Fort Bullen, Berending Crocodile Pool, Juffureh and Albreda among others.
Speaking to travel and tour writers at the Barra Terminal in NBR, Honorable Hamat NK Bah outlined some of the significance of the tour, as government of President Adama Barrow has invested a lot of resources in various regions through the sector in order to transform all the regions especially North Bank into another tourism development area.
Minister Bah noted that Kunta Kinteh Island formerly James Island is a UNESCO Heritage Site which is been preserving for posterity “for people all over the world that have heard about the Roots which Halex Hailey (travelled all the way from America to discover his root) to visit.”
In efforts to promote domestic and regional tourism, he noted that North Bank Region is keys “that government wants to invest more in term of infrastructural development, which is now ongoing.”
With the ongoing infrastructural development, he said “it will certainly attract a lot of tourists and will as well create a lot of jobs.
Among other importance of the development, government will create training opportunities as Ministry of Tourism and Culture will intensity on training program for the youths of the area so that all facilities that are within the area “will have to employ people who come from this region.”
Counting its Ministry assistance to the stakeholders, he said his Ministry has supported institutions, some hotels, historic sites as “government has intervened financially.”
Honorable Bah disclosed further as it is government decision to promote domestic and regional tourism, some managers have since been posted to all regions across the destination permanently to develop and promote tourism within these regions with full believe that it will pay dividends.
In five years to come, he said, “most people who would have been going to Banjul to look for job would not go but instead people would be crossing to Barra, to look for jobs because you have all the facilities that are present in Banjul.”
