(Banjul) Facing the ocean, Malleh Sallah, owner of a luxury hotel, opens his arms as if to embrace the sumptuous landscape: “This is a typical beach of Gambia. Before COVID-19, it was full ”.
The white plastic convertibles under the palm trees and the straw parasols are empty. Yet at Tamala, a four-star establishment near Banjul, and elsewhere in The Gambia, the tourist season has been on since October.
Only an Ivorian producer and his artist, as well as a couple who spend their last hours here before returning to the Netherlands “where it freezes” appreciate the view. You have to move away from the beach towards the restaurant and the swimming pool, to find more people.
Dutch, Africans, the future may be here. The Gambian tourism industry wants to break its dependence on charter flights from Britons attracted by the ” sea, sun and sand ”(Sea, sun and sand) and low prices.
It intends to attract customers from elsewhere in Europe, but also from Africa, even Gambia itself, amateurs of idleness or businessmen.
“We were too focused on the European market and neglected the sub-region,” says Adama Njie, marketing director of the Gambia Tourism Board, the national office, “we are currently focusing a lot on the market of the sub-region and the Gambian tourism ”.
Aware of its vulnerability, The Gambia had already undertaken, before the pandemic, to diversify its clientele.
The virus overtook it and hit hard the tourism of the small country, nicknamed with its 80 km of shores and immense beaches on the Atlantic, the “smiling coast” of Africa.
The Minister of Tourism Hamat Bah estimated in 2019 at 30% the direct and indirect share of tourism in the GDP. International institutions estimate it at around 20%, a windfall for a poor country of two million inhabitants which mainly derives its other income from agriculture and transfers from the diaspora.
Colossal losses
In 2019, The Gambia scrambled to overcome the Thomas Cook bankruptcy, which came just before the start of the season in which the British tour operator dumped hundreds of visitors almost daily.
With COVID-19 in 2020, “everything stopped overnight,” remembers Malleh Sallah, muscular co-owner of Tamala, a flagship of the hotel park with its 140 rooms and high-end services.
“We have lost billions of Dalasis (100 Dalasis = $ 2.30), more than 200,000 jobs, direct or indirect, which has caused social problems; we have seen a crime appear that we did not know, ”the Minister of Tourism told AFP.
Tourist arrivals have fallen from over 235,000 in 2019 to less than 90,000 in 2020, 19% of business has closed and after years of growth The Gambia has suffered recession, according to the International Monetary Fund; 25,000 more people fell into extreme poverty, almost 1% of the population.
“Around the same time last year, the hotel industry was dead,” says Malleh Sallah, co-owner of five hotels: of the 1,000 employees of the Djeliba Leisure Group, only 250 have kept their jobs.
Three of the Djeliba Leisure Group establishments, closed for seven months, have reopened. Usually full in this season, the Tamala is only 70% occupied. Overall, the activity is 30% of what it should be and many establishments have not reopened, says Mr. Njie of the national office.
Focused on Africa
The Gambia has turned to Africa: the Senegalese neighbor, the Nigerian giant, Ghana.
Promoting the image of a hospital destination little affected by COVID-19, it also seeks to attract to Banjul airport more scheduled flights and fewer chartered flights.
The recent service by Air France connects The Gambia to large markets, such as the United States. This is the promise of more flexible and more spending tourism than that of tour operators.
The German tour operator TUI “is gradually replacing Thomas Cook,” says Adama Njie. Dutch tourists, and to a lesser extent Germans and Scandinavians, are beginning to supplant the British, he says, although the latter remain visible on beaches and in bars.
“British tourists are important to us, but they are no longer the only ones we rely on”, says the boss of Tamala, “at the moment 80% of our rooms are occupied by people from the sub-region”.
The last few months, with the pandemic, but also the presidential election in The Gambia and the risk of unrest, have shown that the European market was “very sensitive”.
“The nervousness is less great on the domestic or regional market, we Africans are better immune to political events and some of these viruses,” he jokes.
Mr. Njie sees “very positive signs”, but “this is the new norm: what happens next will be dictated by what COVID-19 has in store for us.”