DG Camara made this statement while updating the press on GTBoard’s mandate and ongoing projects at the Ministry of Information’s monthly briefing.
Mr Camara revealed that they are expecting to have 24 chartered flights and 33 scheduled flights per week, making a total of 57 flights per week.
"We will have three flights per week from Corendon, a tour operator based in Holland. TUI UK, a tour operator from the UK, will provide four flights per week. Additionally, he said “Gambia Experience, a well-established name in this country and also from the UK, will offer three flights per week. TUI Holland will have three flights per week, TUI Belgium two flights per week, and TAP Portugal three flights per week. Rainbow Tours and Voiling will each operate two flights per week, and for the first time, Apodo will also be offering flights," he disclosed.
DG Camara further buttressed on the concerns of people about the Scandinavian market, which they have been struggling to bring back after COVID-19.
However, he said they were able to convince one of the Scandinavian tour operators, which is Apollo, and they are going to start operations on November 5th.
“For the seven flights, we are expecting to have Airpeace, three flights per week. ASky, seven flights per week; Air Senegal, eight times per week, Royal Air Maroc seven times per week, Turkish Airlines, three times per week. Brussels Airlines, five times per week.”
DG Camara stated that they used to have the Scandinavian flight as their first flight at the start of the season. “But we now have the UK flight as the start of the season, given that as far as the statistics are concerned we have more numbers from the UK than any other country.”
“On the 11th of this month, we are going to receive our first batch of UK tourists. And then, on the 14th and 17th of October, we will receive our three flights from Holland. On the 26th of October, we will receive our three Belgium flights with the capacity of 185 and for the three groups, all of them, the capacity is 185 and for TAP Portugal, it’s 165. Railboat Tours is 210, TUI UK is 185 and Corendon 212 passengers.”
Mr Camara also expressed that GTBoard has long been working hard to regain their position in the German market after FTI's departure by convincing TUI to bring tourists from Germany.”
“We have discussed with them, and they plan to bring 1,000 tourists this season using a third-party airline such as Turkish Airlines. Additionally, we have attracted a tour project called Novatos for the first time, and they will be bringing tourists from Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia and their first flight is scheduled for November 1st, bringing around 600 tourists from that region,” he outlined.
