By Sainabou Sambou
As the 2023 tourist season commences, Gambia Daily visited some important tourist attraction sites including the Craft Market along the Senegambia Strip, and the Monkey Park, to sound the expectations of stakeholders in the industry. The interviewees have largely expressed optimism that the season will be a good one.
Yaya Kanteh is a vendor at the Senegambia Craft Market. He said he has been selling at the Craft Market for thirty years now, and affirmed that they’re expecting a high turn-out of tourists.
He however called on the Ministry of Tourism to do more in order to attract more tourists to the country. “They need to make sure they do more marketing to attract more new arrivals” he said.
Kanteh also called on the GT Board to work on stopping sale of craft products on the beaches. This, he said, is affecting their business. “Because when some tourists visit the Craft Market they always say that craft products are at the beach and are cheaper,” he lamented.
Seedy Sanneh, Chairman of the Senegambia Craft Market also said he is expecting high turnout of tourists this year. “The Craft market vendors are here for the tourists. This is the place where we get income from,” he added. He noted that while some of their shops were demolished due to the road construction, GT Board has helped build temporal stalls for the vendors to sell there until when they build their shops again.
Ousman Cham, also a craft vendor who has been selling at the Senegambia Craft Market for forty years now, said they hope that this season would be better than last year’s. “Last year we expected a good turnout but unfortunately the turnout was poor,” he pointed out.
Cham joined his colleagues to call on the Tourism authorities to do more marketing for Destination Gambia so as to attract more tourists to the country, while urging the GTBoard to hasten the rebuilding of their shops that have been affected by the road construction on the Bertil Harding Highway.
He however expressed delight at the good job of the security officers at Senegambia, attesting that their good work has resulted to the Craft market area and products being safe from criminals.
At the Monkey Park in Bijilo, Sulayman Jobe, Park Manager, who has been working at the Bijilo Monkey Park for 21 years, also expressed belief that there will be a large number of tourists this year. This, he said, has been forecast by The Gambia Tourism Board, and that the Park has always been a favourite tourism attraction centre. He noted that the Monkey Park generates a lot of revenue during the tourism season.
Giving a brief history of the Park, Mr. Jobe said the site is a national park established in 1951, and managed by the Department of Forestry under the Ministry of Environment Climate Change and Natural Resources.
“The Park was opened for tourist visits in 1991 through a forestry project called the Gambia German Forest project”. The project, implemented from 1980 to 2004 aimed to upgrade and support sustainable forestry in The Gambia.
“We have different types of animals in the Monkey Park; such as bush babies, and wild cats. Most of these animals come out during the night time,” he explained.
He added they have two species of monkeys in the park: Green Vervet Monkeys and the Shyer western Red Colobus monkeys, and that there are up to 154 species of birds, which are mostly from Gambia while few are from Asia, Europe , South Africa, East Africa; as well as different types of reptiles.
“The government’s plan is to plant more fruit trees for the monkeys. Last year a lot of indigenous fruits trees were planted,” he announced.
On the challenge, Mr Jobe mentioned shortage of water for the monkeys as the main one. “We don’t have drinking water for the monkeys. We used to have natural ponds but due to climate change those natural ponds no more exist. As a result of this, the Park manager lamented that monkeys used to go to the hotels, and homes in search of food and water. He however indicated that this is no longer the case as the Turkiye government has helped build borehole for them.
