Business Travel Briefing Travel Writer, just back from a trip to The Gambia reports on why this relatively tiny country in the West African sub-region is fast acquiring fame as the hotspot of leisure and destination of choice.

Priding itself as the original birthplace of the legendary Kunta Kinte, of the American novelist Alex Hailey creation in his book; Roots, which was later adapted to a film of the same title and which in turn ran for weeks on Nigerian television, The Gambia, on encounter, is also Africa’s best kept secret.

This relatively tiny parcel of land on the West African sub-region tucked virtually inside another country, Senegal, has fully exploited the gifts and splendour of the Atlantic Ocean to the envy of neighbouring countries and its competitors in the tourism market and for rather obvious reason too.

Measuring a mere 11, 295 sq. km (or 4361sq. miles) and a population of a little over

1.3 million, this only English speaking country for miles, on the West African sub-region, is indeed gifted with resources and more to their credit also the human resources to be able tap into these resources with view to maximally utilizing them.

Entering The Gambia for the first time, if the unusually low billboards do not register in your impression of a new country, then strange near absence or low number of the aged folks certainly will. And if those still do not, then the absence of street names arising from the knack of The Gambians to avoid naming their streets. Perhaps because the land is so small everybody knows everybody and everybody knows his way.

Also, the heavy presence of the Nigerian community, by way of the number of Nigerian corporate organizations, government agencies is notable. Nigerian banks in terms of their number account for 95 per cent of financial institutions in the country. They include; GT Bank, Ecobank, Access Bank, Oceanic and Bank PHB in their order of arrival into the country.

In the airline sector, Nigerian-owned Slok Airline is a major stakeholder in the business, followed by Bellview, Arik, and the recently launched Intercontinental Airlines. Virgin Nigeria is also concluding plans to start a direct flight to the capital, Banjul.

At a recent ceremony organized at the Kairaba Beach Hotel, in The Gambia, to welcome a Nigerian business delegation comprising tour and travel operators and media representatives, and which had in attendance the major players in the country’s tourism and tours sector, it was obvious The Gambia had begun an expansionist plan to broaden its scope in the industry on a global scale.

Largely considering the doubledigit growth recorded by the country’s tourism industry, this long overdue grand design by The Gambia Tourism Authority (GTA), which organized the one-week trip in conjunction with the Gambian Hotels Association (GHA), is beginning with Nigeria as the first stop considering the country’s contribution towards the success story and also on account of the major role and position of Nigeria in the region.