Stakeholders in the Gambian tourism industry have watched with a sense of foreboding as the UK-based tour operator Thomas Cook entered liquidation, throwing the approaching tourist season which starts in October into uncertainty.
Thomas Cook flies about 33 percent of tourists to The Gambia every year dating back to the mid 1980s and news of it going down under on Monday sent shockwaves in the local tourism industry which contributes 30 percent to the national GDP.
September is usually a frantic month of preparation ahead of the tourist season in The Gambia with hotels and line businesses sprucing up in anticipation.
However, since news of Thomas Cook filtered through, hoteliers, tour operators, bird watching crews, restaurateurs, safari owners, beach boys or bumsters – the whole gamut of tourism-oriented concerns have been wary of the inevitable consequences.
Tourism minister Hamat Bah was the first to voice the government’s deep concern especially in light of the record 67, 000 tourists that Thomas Cook flew in from UK and Europe during the last tourist season.
At the end of that season, his ministry was looking to better that figure which was a third of the overall arrivals last season, but the Thomas Cook bankruptcy saga has changed the configuration for all that.
Bah said the government is working on putting in place measures to bring British tourists to The Gambia by inviting other airlines to fill the void left by Thomas Cook.
Speaking in a radio talk show on Tuesday, hotelier Malleh Sallah, said its collapse will not augur well for Gambian tourism this coming season and perhaps for the longer term.
Sallah, the CEO of Tamala Beach hotel described it as a crisis in the making and points to why Gambian tourism should be dynamic and lend itself to other means of attracting tourists to its shores.
209, 134 tourists visited The Gambia last season of which 52,103 were from the UK, figures from the Tourism officials show.
According to Bunama Njie, who heads The Gambia Hotel Association, the 57,000 tourists who booked their flights through Thomas Cook ahead of the coming season will decrease inevitably.
Beach boy hustlers locally known as bumsters like Ousman Jallow are also concerned.
“The more tourists arrive in Gambia, the better our chances of striking beneficial interactions with them. This problem will lead to less arrivals and cut our chances” he told the African Press Agency.
The 178-year old global travel group which also operated an airline announced it was going into compulsory liquidation on Monday after being mired in billions of pounds of debt which the UK government regards as unsustainable.
Thus the tour operator which had business interests in China, Finland, Russia, Germany and The Gambia ceased trading with immediate effect, with all flights and holidays cancelled, causing worry in Banjul where tourism is a lifeline for many Gambians.
Entering into administration in the UK where it is based has left some 30, 000 of its workers worldwide redundant overnight.
AS/APA