The Gambian Tourist Value Chain and Prospects for Pro-Poor Tourism

Tourism in The Gambia: International ‘Best Practice’ in Poverty Reduction & Pro-Poor Growth Through Tourism
Draft Report (Friday 22 nd December 2006)
However, the local linkages in the Gambian tourism product compares favourably with
Egypt – Africa’s second largest economy with a highly sophisticated tourist infrastructure.
Note, in particular, how The Gambia captures at least as big a share of tourist spending on
accommodation, shopping, excursions and food and drink as Egypt. As is argued later, this
achievement has a significant impact on the flow of benefits from tourism to poor people in
The Gambia.
It is also interesting to note that, contrary to the assertions of the ‘leakage’ pessimists – in
which most of the benefits of tourism are taken by tour operators and airline companies –
the cost of air transportation to The Gambia and tour operators returns are not a
disproportionate share of the total package cost, compared with other African destinations.
To conclude this analysis of the Gambian tourism value chain and flow of benefits to the
poor, our hypotheses about the importance of tourism to some poor countries and the fact
that some benefits are accessed by the poor has been largely substantiated. First, the full
tourism value chain in The Gambia, including discretionary as well as package spending, is
extremely important to the macro-economy. Just over half of the £96m tourism value chain
takes place in The Gambia – the off-shore activities relate to the international tour
operators and airline companies. This suggests that, if external ‘leakages’ for Gambianbased
activities were reduced to zero, the tourism sector could contribute about £50m to
an economy with a current national income of £213m per year -the equivalent of onequarter
of total national income.
Fruit sellers on the beach © Jonathan Mitchell
Second, our analysis suggests that at least 7% of the total Gambian tourism value chain –
and some 14% of the Gambian-based part of the value chain - flows directly into the hands
of the poor. Our hypothesis that tourism is inherently pro-poor has been supported and,
further, that the extent of local linkages seems to be particularly rich and well-developed
in The Gambia compared with other destinations. This is particularly the case for the
smaller items of the value chain, such as shopping and excursions. The challenge presented
by the larger elements of the tourism value chain, such as accommodation and food and
beverages, is to increase the pro-poor share of spending on these activities.
In the following section, the issue of how to strengthen linkages between tourism and the
poor will be structured around the components of the tourism value chain.
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