Arts dealers suggest all-year round tourism season, increased local tourism to halt industry woes

The tourists’ off-season has always been characterized by slow businesses due to the low inflow of tourists into the country, and by now many of those who open their stalls in the various tourists markets spread across the country spend a better part of the day chatting or drinking attaya. TODAY takes a walk to the Bakau tourists market where the marketers take our correspondent on a journey of current realities.

Mr. Sainey Singhateh, president of the Bakau Tourists Market in an encounter with TODAY Newspaper, said that during this time of the year business is always at a standstill due mainly to lack of customers. He revealed that most of the vendors at the tourist market have resigned to other economic domains rather than coming to the market because of lack of tourists who are their prime patrons.

According to him, the situation is really worrying as one can go to the tourist market for days without making a single sale. Mr. Singhateh continued to reveal the difficult conditions they encounter during the off-season when there is little or no sales culminating in the numerous home conditions surfacing. “This makes things even harder for us to make survival out of these commercial ventures. Most of us are family men who have certain responsibilities to take care of but without sales, life gets harder,” he said.

New visitors to the country, he noted, are not even staying in hotels again. According to him, some of the visiting tourists to The Gambia have their own accommodations and villas where they refer some of the potential guests to stay while they come to the country for holidays. “This,” he said, “is killing the tourism business and the authorities should do something about it now, or else this will continue to inflict a colossal damage to the local business on the ground,” he stated.

He called for the immediate help of relevant authorities to help them get access to loans so that during the off-season they can buy logs to build on new products before the tourists season starts again. He said that the then commercial bank used to offer such incentives to craft market vendors and this definitely helped a lot. However, the situation is no longer the same.

Mr. Singhateh finally urged local buyers to come for their products now that their prices are low and affordable.

Also speaking to TODAY, a 60 year old veteran arts dealer, Ya Ngoneh Fall, who has been trading arts products for over three decades now took a veteran’s eye view of the matter. According to her, year in and year out, the off-season has always been a time to worry about, as there are practically no sales.

But, it could be said that the absence of a local tourism culture is more of a problem itself. Many Gambians care less about visiting tourist sites or places of historical relevance. And very few also have a knack for the arts or art products. This is why most traders in the arts and craft market wait upon the tourists’ dollar.

As an answer to this, the veteran arts dealer, Ya Ngoneh Fall reechoed the call to local people to appreciate arts products and to buy from them. She said that during the off-season, prices are low and affordable to almost every other person on the street. According to her, there is nothing to fear or worry about. “Let locals come for our products,” she said.

She then used the opportunity to thank the authorities for giving the market a new facelift and called on them to insert more marketing initiatives to attract whole year tourism season for The Gambia.

Another arts dealer, Salifu Sambou who also spoke to TODAY expressed his worries about the slowing business which they are presently encountering.  He said that efforts should be made by the Gambia Tourism Authority (GTA) and other relevant stakeholders to endeavour to help them in marketing their products.

Mr. Sambou said that lack of control for arts and craft products also has some effects on the prospect of their business, noting that in every corner of the town there are stalls selling arts and craft products. He said that this is not helping but killing the business at the tourist markets. He finally appealed to the authorities to halt this practice.