The Minister for Tourism and Culture has said that his ministry is working towards their target of having 350,000 tourists to be holidaying in The Gambia by the year 2021.

Hamat Bah was speaking at a press conference organized by the Ministry of Tourism and Culture on Friday held at the Gambia Tourism and Hotel School in Kanifing.

“We recorded an increase of 28% last year which is remarkable. Our target here within the NDP is to reach 350,000 by the year 2021,” he said.

According to him, his personal ambition for the growth of the tourism sector is to boost to 500,000 by 2021.

He said they have surpass their target in the National Development Plan, adding “but we want to progress and move forward.”

However, Mr. Bah lamented about the challenges faced by his ministry, correlating the challenges to the poor and negligent performance by the former regime in tourism.

He said one of the challenges holding his ministry of not building hotels in the country is as a result of “34% of the entire TDA land was leased by the former president and the commission took over these lands.”

Mr. Bah said: “We believe that one of the major hurdles we have is building hotels and they must be quality hotels. We started that but we were in trouble of…the 34% of the entire TDA land were leased by the former president and the commission took over these lands.”

He further claimed that “we couldn’t get them back; judicial process wasn’t easy, very frustrating and some of the investors left the country to invest in other countries.”

He said that “we want to reach not the NDP (target) but the 500, 000 (tourists) so that every Gambian can fill in their pocket, and the only way we can do that is by increasing the numbers and the qualities, and the standards.”

Reporting by Adama Makasuba