Amidst
the collapse of Thomas Cook UK that is causing fear on the reduction in the
number of tourist arrivals in the destination, the Thomas Cook Northern Europe
(NE) maiden flight of the 2019 winter tourism season Thursday evening arrived
The Gambia with 365 tourists.
The
airbus 330 with capacity of about 380 which airlifted the tourists, flew direct
from Gothenburg, Sweden to Banjul and was received by officials of Gambia
Tourism Board (GTBoard) and Gambia Tours.
Answering
questions from members of travel and tour writers, Adama Njie, Director of
Marketing at GTBoard disclosed that Thomas Cook Northern Europe will be
bringing two flights every weekly from Northern Europe while the other Thomas
Cook NE will be also flying in from Denmark, starting from Monday 28th October
2019 as collapse of Thomas Cook UK did not affect Thomas Cook Scandinavia.
He
affirmed that the country will feel the pinch of Thomas Cook UK bankruptcy but
said at GTBoard, they are optimistic that as they keep going with the team
currently in UK led by the Director General of the GTBoard, some positive
results will be achieved.
“It
is an opportunity for us to reposition ourselves as a country and put other
things in place to mitigate things in the future to avoid this type of
situation,” he said.
Mr
Njie however noted that tourism is not about the number of tourists coming but
the people coming to the country and spend in a way that will trickle down to
the local people. “GTBoard is very congnizant of the fact that tourism can roll
when you have people who are spending, which is one of the reasons we are
targeting tourists from the sub region, including Nigeria.”
Commenting
on the Thomas Cook NE winter tourism season maiden flight, Charbel Hobeika,
Managing Director Gambia Tours reiterated that it is Thomas Cook UK that
collapsed not the one of Northern Europe.
On
the vacuum left behind by the Thomas Cook UK, he opined that it is not easy to
find replacement when almost all bookings have been done. He assured that
Gambia Tours is working tirelessly to fill the gap “though for this ongoing
season, is too late but hopefully next season things will get better as we will
get better replacement for the UK market.”
