Roger,
Sorry for not replying to your earlier posting on this issue. Be rest assured that i will get back to you over the weekend. Regards to your wife and family.

roger sterk wrote:

> Dear members hereby I want to share a letter with you that I sended some time ago to Sheikh Tejan Nejang, before the end of may Gambia will loose 50% of tourisme. It is time that Gambia takes matters in his own hands and start earning from tourisme by themselves! This is a rough plan that has been done in other countries as well.I am a foreigner and cannot do else then offer my knowledge and coorporation. You guys will have to act on it or alter it in another plan, please jump in the hole that western touroperators leave behind. Now is the time!!
> -----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
> Van: roger sterk <[log in to unmask]>
> Aan: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
> Datum: maandag 29 januari 2001 22:22
> Onderwerp: tourisme
>
> dear sheikh,
> I am very curious to hear something about your conference from last saturday, did you succeed in joining the parties and making one platform? I hope you had succes. I think one of the first items you have to adress is not to give the tourist a nice stay and an interesting program and give the gambians a living in the touristindustrie but how to get tourists in the first place.
>
> More problems are rising for the touristindustrie as we speak, at the moment the position of Sabena the belgium aircompany is very uncertain, they are virtually bankrupt and at the moment they need a financial injection of fivehundred million USD , the belgium government is willing to pay 200 million USD the other 300 million USD has to be paid by their partner Swissair who is for 50 % owner of Sabena, it is not sure yet if this payment will be made. Even if the 500 million USD are paid they are still forced to sell several planes and to cut down a large number of flights, one of the flights that is in danger is the flight to Dakar and Banjul.Transavia the dutch chartercompany stops permanently the 21st of march and FTi the German touroperator will stop the end of may.
>
> What you need to do is taking the matters in your own hand and try to form a party that is acceptable  for foreign aircompanys to do bussiness with. You can jump in the hole that foreign touroperators will leave behind and start a touroperator of your own.At the moment  I think that your iniative (ASSET) is to small.You need more beds and for that reason it would be necessary to have two larger hotels in your organisation, one highclass hotel (hotel Atlantic?) and one budget hotel , I think that mister Laye  Mbodge( I hope this is the correct spelling)from Badalapark hotel will be very interested because he has lost a considerable part of his income or will loose it in the future.Together with the united ASSET members you are than able to  offer the tourists a whole range of accomodations and tours and are able to make a full program. I am able to bring you in contact with a dutch government organisation which is called Centre  for stimulation of export of developing Countries.
>
> This organisation also helps to develop Western tourisme in developing countries and offers practical and financial help, for example they can print your brochures and be an intermediator between you and western companies.
>
> I can also bring you in contact with Air Holland , they want to start flying to West Africa and are at the moment desperately looking for clients to sell  their seats to. There are possible candidates for selling your program and I have some contacts with one of this travelagenciecompanies. THere are even possibilities for making a cheap year round advertisement and showing your Gambian film which you were talking about in one of your emails ,for one week daily on television.
> This are just some ideas of me and I hope  we can make tourisme strong again. At the moment the situation doesnt look great but if we seriously try we can make from this misery a great change to take matters in your own hands and really start earning good money for the Gambia.I will have to look to the tourismesituation in other European countries and see if somethings can be connected.
> For the moment I will stop but very soon I will get back to you with more info.
> regards
> Roger Sterk
>
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