Email Gambia News to a friend
Print version
Comment on This Gambia News

Gambia: A Boost for Gambian Tourism

The plans for a five-star hotel at Juffureh in North Bank Region, is indeed a promising gift for the people of the village , the birth place of Kunta Kinte, the warrior Gambian slave, whose descendants shuffled off the shackles of servitude to regain their honour and dignity centuries later.

Many people have always maintained that Juffureh was an untapped gold mine in Gambian tourism. This is a most well known village in the Gambian; it is most eulogized, most documented thanks to Alex Haley's Tome, Roots, published in 1976 and put into celluloid in 1977 to great international acclaim. Then was the best time to put Juffureh firmly on the world tourism map, it was hot in the news: all the world's leading newspapers from the New York Times, to Le Monde or Des Speigel; BBC, CBS, ABC TV and other leading media sent reporters to this sleepy Gambia village.

Since 1994 much effort has gone into making the village what it should have been for a long time ago: a tourism attraction, including the new slavery museum put up in 1996, the Roots Festival, the slave route trail and similar attractions are now in place. Now tourists have much to see and reflect on in Juffureh. Yet, there are not enough suitable places to stay in. This is where the proposed hotel comes in handy. It will enable tourists to stay longer in the village, spend more there and indeed have more time to appreciate its bounty in heritage.

Such facilities for tourism will help to give jobs to the youth, bring power, water and different amenities to the village. Also, tourism facilities will be decentralized, thereby spreading the benefits of the service more widely, across the country.