Dear Roger,
I'm afraid that perhaps our new and growing reputation as a country whose
leadership is invloved in the blood diamond trade as well as the rampant
human rights abuses may be one of the contributing factors for this new turn
of events. Unfortunately, it is only the common people who will suffer for
it. There may be other reasons, but the reputation we have now does not help
the situation. I am sure that these tour operators also have ot be concerned
about the fact that if a leadership is violating the rights of it's own
citizenry, who can feel safe there?
Jabou Joh
In a message dated 1/14/01 1:27:45 PM Eastern Standard Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:
<< Dear Sirs and Ladies,
I am a newcomer on this list, so let me introduce myself to you.
I am a dutch citizen who married a Gambian women Bintou Jatta.
My wife always tries to stay in contact with Gambia trough the internet, and
because we have many friends and familie there we always feel connected with
the Gambian daily life.By planning our next trip to the Gambia in march I
stumbled over some disturbing news that I want to inform you about. I found
out that all the dutch touroperators (Sunair, Marysol, Vakantietoppers) are
going to cancel Gambia as a holidaydestination from 21 march onwards.
Transavia the chartercompany wil stop flying then, and the last returnflight
will be on the 26st of march, By writing them and asking about the reasons
they wil only say, we stop because the rainseason is starting and the weather
will be bad (in march?) More disturbing is the fact that they tell people
they might start going again the end of october. Previewing the new
holidaybooks for this year show no Gambian destination at all. So my big fear
is that Dutch touroperators switched to a new more lucrative destination (
Goa in India) and wil never fly to the Gambia again. At the same time the
German touroperator FTI has told that they will stop flying to the Gambia in
may and as yet it is very uncertain if they will resume flying in october. At
the same time the newly re-erected Airholland chartercompany is having big
dificulties getting started. Autumn last year they proudly released an
article to tell that they were apointed to be the national aircompany of
Senegal in coorporation with Senair. Daily flights would start 15 december
to Dakar, Banjul, Monrovia and Guinee-Conakry. But still they are not flying
and time and money is running out of them, by asking what happend they
replied that working with their African Partners needs a lot of time and
somehow doesn,t get started. This problems will have a big impact on Gambian
economy I fear. Because a big part of tourisme income will fall away.
Something must be done about that, maybe the Gambian High Comission has to
make an apeal of at least partly resuming the flights. Who has got a good
idea of boosting tourisme to the Gambia again?
Regards
Roger Sterk
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L
Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html
You may also send subscription requests to [log in to unmask]
if you have problems accessing the web interface and remember to write your full name and e-mail address.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
