Africa-Press – Gambia. The Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture in collaboration with the project implementation unit of the tourism diversification and resilience, on Friday handed over passport scanners, printers and servers to four government institutions including the Gambia Bureau of Statistics, Gambia Tourism Board, Gambia Immigration Department and National Centre for Arts and Culture.
The handing over ceremony was held at the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture in Banjul.
The equipment forms part of a broader effort to improve evidence-based tourism planning and policy formulation, and to support the operation of the Management Information System for Tourism (MIST) developed to enhance tourism data collection analysis and dissemination.
Presenting the items Abdoulie Jobe, Minister of Tourism, said the gesture represents far more than a simple transfer of equipment but marks “our collective commitment to transforming how we understand, measure, and grow our vital tourism sector through the power of data and evidence- based decision making.”
“The assessment on improving the system of tourism statistics in The Gambia revealed critical gaps in our national tourism statistics infrastructure. The recommendations formed the blueprint for what we are actualising today through the Tourism Diversification and Resilience project,” he said.
Minister Jobe said the materials were provided by the World Bank’s IDA grant.
“The high performance computers and workstation, industry-grade tablets, and supporting server infrastructure were carefully selected and distributed to four key institutions based on their specific operational needs and mandates,” he added.
He further disclosed that the Gambia Tourism Board will use them for market intelligence, the Bureau of Statistics to facilitate digital data collection in the field to improve data accuracy, and the National Centre for Arts and Culture for cultural tourism metrics.
Minister Jobe further revealed that the Gambia Immigration Department (GID) has been strengthened with solar equipment at six border posts to avoid interrupted power outage.
Minister Jobe advised the beneficiary institutions to take good care of the materials to ensure that proper maintenance, security and optimal utilisation.
“This will be supported by a rigorous monitoring and evaluation system that will track our progress against clear benchmarks. We anticipate that within the foreseeable future, this investment will yield immeasurable results including a marked improvement in the timeliness of our tourism statistics reporting, a significant increase in data points, and the compilation of Tourism Satellite Account (TSA) tables for our first ever TSA,” he said.
He said the establishment of a comprehensive TSA will finally allow “us to accurately measure tourism’s true contribution to our national economy, not just in terms of direct employment and revenue but its multiplier effects across related sectors.”
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