Dear
Editor,
Please
allow me space in your widely read newspaper to express my concern about recent
reports in the pages of newspapers about growing operational lapses at the
Banjul International Airport. This is cause for concern given that travel
facilitation is a major variable in tourism development. As we are all aware
the provision of supply side support systems is the responsibility of
governments in destinations and while tourism products are directly consumed
and experienced by visitors, these need to be complemented by a range of
indirect services that are vital in facilitating an enjoyable and hassle free
experience. General destination upkeep
in terms of clean environment and high degree of tidiness as well as robust
customer care and provision of tourism related infrastructure such as a
functional airport, public transport, good road infrastructure, and signage and
tourism information are key ingredients and a sine qua non for seamless tourism
development in this day and age.
Over
the years various developments and efforts were put in place to ensure a
condusive environment and hassle free experience for the growing number of
tourists to the Smiling Coast, and this is laudable. Such developments are
multi faceted and touched on a broad range of areas including institutional
strengthening, robust regulations, generic and niche product development, capacity
building and people development initiatives, destination marketing as well as
the development of quality standards in the industry to ensure guest
expectations are exceeded thus leading to customer retention as evidenced by
the 52% repeater rate.
However
of late reports coming out of the airport are not the least satisfactory. Going by these reports the range of
operational and travel facilitation challenges are mind boggling including non
tourist friendly clearance procedures, extended processing time by Immigration
personnel, bird strikes, nonchalant
attitude of the porters and other personnel in the discharge of their duties.
Clearly there is need for more customer care
and tourist friendly attitude by operatives and the need to improve travel
facilitation at our one and only international airport cannot be
overemphasized. Another very important
critical issue is that of air access given that boosting air connectivity and
easing the visa regime directly lead to growth in tourism numbers. Facilitation
of tourism and travel is defined as the totality of entry and exit regulations,
procedures applicable within a given territory, immigration, customs and health
formalities, currency exchange facilities, luggage handling and transportation
from airports to the city centers; it also includes information services,
shopping facilities and reception services. The first and last impressions of a
country retained by the tourist often depend on the efficiency of its
facilitation services.
It
is therefore imperative to improve travel facilitation and adopting tourist friendly visa
policy with a view to making travel to the Smiling Coast as seamless as
possible and at the same time increasing direct links in to the country and
improving infrastructure and procedures and overall customer care at the
airport.
However
it is gratifying to point out that various efforts are being rolled out by the
authorities to ensure seamless travel to destination Gambia including waiver of
visa for select countries – all of which are our key source markets or most
promising source markets for destination Gambia. This is a laudable and kudos to the Minister
of Tourism and Culture and all relevant government agencies for coming up with
this visa free policy which can only boost tourism and put destination Gambia
on a more competitive footing. The need to include Russian Federation as well
as Ukraine in the visa exemption package can only boost efforts at penetrating
the Russian market.
The
airport is also undergoing very tangible expansion to make it more functional
and it is hoped that through multi- sectoral collaboration some these
bottlenecks and operational challenges can be addressed. The need for capacity
building in the form of tailor made training programmes for the Immigration and
Customs officials on customer care and tourist friendly approaches and
behavior, at the level of the airport can also go a long way to addressing
these issues.
