By Yunus S Saliu
The Institute of Travel and Tourism of the Gambia (ITTOG) and partners Wednesday, 23rd March, presented a special manual for Community Base Tourism (CBT) in The Gambia. The manual is tipped to form history in the country’s tourism development.
According to Mr Sheik Tijan Nyang, Head of ITTOG, over the past four years, he disclosed, with intervention of their partners, YEP together with the entire tourism sector actors have worked tirelessly to build capacity in the area of Community Base Tourism.
This he said they have “considered as one of the pillars of our (The Gambia) tourism development. And the presentation of this manual, we are hopeful that with the commitment of our core team, we will be able to address most, if not all our challenges of ‘backway’ migration, rural urban drift among other challenges we face in our communities today.”
The Head of ITTOG affirmed that their success lies in their commitment to work together as a team in fulfilling the dreams and aspirations of people in the provision of skills and means of survival through responsible tourism principles.
As he thanked the YEP, their trainers from Thailand and all partners involved in the exercise for their hard work and contribution to the success of achieving their goals in the production of the manual, he hoped and prayed that “trainees in this exercise would make good use of this training to benefit themselves and their communities.”
Ngoneh Panneh, Programme Officer, Tourism and Creative Industries of YEP made a power point presentation of the Community Base Tourism, as stakeholders keenly listened, while the presentation was followed by questions and answers.
The representative of Director General of National Centre for Arts and Culture, Demba Y Baldeh, and Muhammed Kebbeh who also represented the Community Base Tourism crew of Janjangbureh both made brief remarks on the importance and role CBT plays in the country at the event held at the ITToG premises in Kotu.
