(Friday 18 October 2019 Issue)
At
the arrival of Corendon Airline’s 2019 winter tourism season maiden flight to
Destination Gambia at the airport on Monday, Abdoulie Hydara, said Russia did
not pullout from Gambia’s tourism market because of bad experience, but because
of economic reason.
Mr.
Hydara, who was entangled in series of questioning by travel and tour writers
also said tour operators of Russian tourists to The Gambia did not agree on
pricing mechanism at the time. “Therefore, they have to pullout simply because
Russia was facing some economic sanctions that did not support its currency to
pay foreign services.” He said since things have now changed, they are working
on bringing them back.
On October 1st last year, 350 Russian Tourists
landed in destination Gambia on Royal Flight VP-BLC Airbus, which marked the
official opening of the 2018/2019-winter tourism season.
The landing underscored the reality that the
GTBoard had succeeded in its quest in capturing that part of European nation
market. The capturing of that market was as a result of unrelenting efforts of
the Gambia Tourism Board and its Ministry that made FTI to return to The Gambia
and with direct flight from Moscow to Banjul.
