The Gambia and Ghana will jointly start a tourism promotion and marketing programme to further improve and upgrade their skills before the end of 2015.
Among other things the promotion and marketing programme will enable the two countries to embark on exchange of knowledge whereby staff of Gambian and Ghanaian tourism facilities will undertake on-the-job skills upgrade industrial attachments.
In accordance to the detail terms contain in a draft Memorandum of Understanding which the two countries have desired to enter into, the multiple destination agreement by which a tourist who buys a ticket to visit The Gambia or Ghana will, automatically, visit the other country as one package.
The detail terms of the draft Memorandum of Understanding were spelt during meetings between officials of The Gambia Ministry of Tourism and Culture; Gambia Tourism and Hospitality Training Institute and a Ghanaian delegation to The Gambia.
David Nana Anim, the president of Ghana Tourism Federation, led the delegation with other members of the Ghanaian delegation including Reuben Kojovi, the assistant director of Projects with the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Creative Arts and Mabel Ashorkor-Adjei of Yehoda Hospitality.
Nana Anim on their weeklong visit to The Gambia expressed Gambian desires to have Ghanaian movie and music celebrities undertake visits to the country.
He added that Gambian tourism operators had put in a request to Ghana Tourism Federation to help to strengthen their private sector grouping into a vibrant advocacy group that would have a voice in policy making.
Anim noted further that officials of the two countries were currently studying the said MoU draft while the relevant ministers of two countries would sign the final document. He said the biggest threat to efforts at any joint Ghana-Gambia tourism co-operation was the absence of a direct flight linking the two countries.
Anim said Gambia Air, which used to fly to Accra, had ceased operation, but added that there were moves in consultation with the Board of Airline Representatives in Ghana to remedy the situation.