Thursday, April 11, 2013

The Leading Gambian Tour Operator

West African Tours was set up in 1987 by Patrick Sothern and Angela Andrews as a full service destination management company that provides total quality control and hands on destination management of all ground services during your entire stay.


For Tour Operators and Travel Agents with small programmes we can offer a full resort service including meet and greet, transfers, hotel reservations, hotel hospitality desks, excursions, flight reconfirmation for your clients and full resort information service for the operator including a quality control assessment of all hotels and tourist facilities. Our good relationship with service providers assists our aim of 100% satisfaction.

Between Patrick and Angela they have over 40 years experience in tourism, particularly in The Gambia. They are supported by our team of over 30 trained staff that are dedicated to ensuring the quality of travel management you are looking for. This is a company that has grown on teamwork and dedication.

Based in Fajara, in the heart of The Gambia’s coastal resort strip, West African Tours is well placed to serve the needs of hotel-based clients in The Gambia and with their network of agents throughout the region, we can advise, organise and assist you wherever you want to travel in West Africa.

West African Tours maintains close contacts with The Gambian Government’s Tourist Authority and was proud to be Gambia Chamber of Commerce, Tourism and Travel Association and Industry’s Tourism Promoter of the Year in 2003.

We also pride ourselves on our commitment to the Gambian people and we regularly support charities with donations and equipment.
West African Tours offers destination management, specialist tour and excursion services in The Gambia and beyond. These are detailed in this webblog.

West African Tours
We show you the very best that Gambia has to offer in adventure, cultural, bird watching, fishing, roots heritage, sports fishing, four wheel drive, safari and day tours. We also offer Senegal, Ghana and Mali tours.

Enjoy Your Gambia Experience With Us!
220 449 5258
watours@qanet.gm
watours@gamtel.gm
watours@gmail.com
http://www.westafricantours.com/

Thursday, August 12, 2010

A Major Tourism Boom Awaits Gambia

The tiny nation of The Gambia—a popular holiday resort for Western tourists, would soon witnessed a dramatic transformation on its tourism industry policies, with the view of restoring tourists and investors confidence, President Yahya Jammeh has declared.

Mr. Jammeh believes that tourism is an important sector in the nation’s economy, which accounts for the greater percentage of Gambia’s Gross Domestic Product—known as (GDP). Mr. Jammeh opined that such an important sector needs to be given the attention it deserved in the interest fulfilling the nation’s economic agenda—which is to transform the mini West African state into an economic power in the region.

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Annual Congress of the African Travel Association (ATA)

Delegates who attended the 35th Annual Congress of the African Travel Association (ATA) say they appreciate The Gambia as a great potential for harnessing the 'untapped' tourism market in the continent, PANA reported from here Thursday.

They said that they had learnt great lessons from The Gambian experience and believed that the country could be a model for the Africa's tourism industry with specific regards to the development pace of the industry.

"The Gambia is situated in a strategic position and has a great potential for the sustainability of the tourism market," they said, nothing that the traditional and cultural heritage in the West African country painted a mental picture of "the norms and values of our great ancestors".

The delegates were taken on a conducted tour, organized by The Gambia Tourism Authority (GTA), to historical sites like the James Island and Juffureh (a designated UNESCO World Heritage Site) which was the base for the transportation of slaves from The Gambia, across the Atlantic Ocean to the New World of the Americas.

They also visited the Eco Tourism Centres at the GIG Farm, Mama Africa Museum Centre in Brufut and the President's Village of Kanilai , which has been transformed into a cultural stronghold by The Gambian leader.

Kanilai is known for hosting the country's biggest annual cultural jamboree, the Kanilai Cultural Festival.

Having seen just a few tourist centres, Mr. Ogo Sow, the first African Immigrant and Expatriate to start a Radio Programme in the United States and Canada, aimed at promoting African tradition and positive image, said the delegates had a lot to learn from The Gambia.

Mr. Sow, fondly called Mr. Africa in America, said The Gambia was a real tourist destination and served as a role model for tourism sustainability and development in Africa.
West African Tours
We show you the very best that Gambia has to offer in adventure, cultural, bird watching, fishing, roots heritage, sports fishing, four wheel drive, safari and day tours. We also offer Senegal, Ghana and Mali tours.

Enjoy Your Gambia Experience With Us!
220 449 5258
watours@qanet.gm
watours@gamtel.gm
watours@gmail.com
http://www.westafricantours.com/

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Kanili Festival Kicks Off!






 In a brief chat with Entertainment recently at the National Centre for Arts and Culture, Mr. Cornelius Gomez, director of Literature, Performing and Fine Arts, said this festival has been created by the president since 2001 and is the fifth. He added that this has been established and has created more awareness for African people and also play a higher role in national development.



Director Gomez explained that coming up with this kind of festival is the biggest not only involving Gambians but as well as the Diaspora to come together and renew our African culture. It is going to be a very big festival because is going to include both Latin America, Europe as well as other countries. African musitical power will all demonstrate during the festival and there will be prices giving for the best performance in all different areas.
West African Tours
We show you the very best that Gambia has to offer in adventure, cultural, bird watching, fishing, roots heritage, sports fishing, four wheel drive, safari and day tours. We also offer Senegal, Ghana and Mali tours.

Enjoy Your Gambia Experience With Us!
220 449 5258
watours@qanet.gm
watours@gamtel.gm
watours@gmail.com
http://www.westafricantours.com/

Saturday, May 8, 2010

Gambia Recycle



West African Tours
We show you the very best that Gambia has to offer in adventure, cultural, bird watching,fishing, roots heritage, sports fishing, four wheel drive, safari and day tours. We also offer Senegal, Ghana and Mali tours.
Enjoy Your Gambia Experience With Us!
220 449 5258
watours@qanet.gm
watours@gamtel.gm
watours@gmail.com 
http://www.westafricantours.com/


Sunday, April 18, 2010

Gambia Baobab



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The origin of the name baobab is uncertain. Some have suggested that it comes from "bu hobab," a name used for the plant in the markets of Cairo. Or perhaps it was derived from "bu hibab," an Arabic designation for "the fruit with many seeds." The trees are related to the kapok and the balsa. There are 6 species of baobab trees in Madagascar, 1 in Africa and 2 elsewhere (including Australia and Vietnam). The baobab trees (called renala by inhabitants of Madagascar) are present almost everywhere on the island, except in the highlands and rain forest. They are most prevalent in the dry savannah of the West.

For centuries, much of what was known about baobabs was based exclusively on the African baobab (A digitata). The first recorded reference was by 14th-century Arab traveller Ibn Batuta who mentions the water-storage capacity of its massive trunk. In 1661 the writer Flacourt praised the giants - speaking about the area of Morondava, he wrote: "It is in this region that exists a tree named Anadzahé, which is monstrously stupendously large. It is hollow inside and 12 feet in diameter, round, ending in an archway like the bottom of a lamp. There are only a few small branches here and there on top. The tree is a wonder to be seen."
Sometimes called the "upside-down tree" because of their unusual root-like branch formations, baobabs are extremely long-lived. Some specimens are believed to be more than 5,000 years old. (Two trees on an island off Cape Verde were estimated to be over 5,000 years old. 


Girth measurements themselves are not reliable estimates of a particular tree's age, as the conditions under which it has grown - and the climatic fluctuations of the centuries - strongly affect them - some years, they can decrease in size. There is no such thing as a "typical" baobab. Inside its shell, the tree's fruit contains a number of seeds, embedded in a whitish, powdery pulp. Tangy and exceedingly nutritious, the pulp makes a tasty food or, after soaking in water or milk, a refreshing beverage (with 6 times the vitamin C content of an orange). Fermented, it makes a traditional brew.

The seeds may be eaten raw or roasted. They yield an edible oil which is used for cooking and exported for use in cosmetics. The leaves, similar to spinach, are eaten as a relish, especially in times of drought and are considered medicinal - they reduce fever and diarrhœa. The pollen of the African and Australian baobabs is mixed with water to make glue.

The wood has a moisture content of 40%, making it unusuable as timber (which is lucky for the tree because it keeps it from being harvested) but the fibrous bark can be made into baskets, rugs, fishing nets, hats, ropes and the like. The tree seems impervious to having its bark stripped.

Baobab (called kuka trees in Nigeria) flower for the first time at about 20 years. In mid-summer, dozens of luminous white blossoms - the size of saucers - open at sunset and their strong musky odour attracts fruit bats and hosts of insects. Large bats seek out the generous sweet nectar and collect and distribute pollen as they move from flower to flower.
The life of a flower is short lived and it drops to the ground within hours. The resultant seeds are housed in a hairy pod which resembles a miniature rugby ball (inside of which is a white pulp from which cream of tartar is derived). Once they fall to the ground, the pods are fed upon by baboons, monkeys, antelope and elephants, which serve to disperse the hard seeds within. Humans eat them as well.
Bushbabys, squirrels, rodents, lizards, snakes, tree frogs, spiders, scorpions and insects may live out their entire lives in a single tree. Birds nest in holes in the trunk. The hollow trunks of living trees have served as homes, storage barns, places of refuge or worship, and even as prisons or tombs. One tree near Gravelotte in South Africa's Northern Province was used as a bar where up to a dozen thirsty gold diggers could quench their thirst.
Certain tribes in the Transvaal wash baby boys in water soaked in the bark of a baobab. Then, like the tree, they will grow up mighty and strong. To this day the baobab remains at the centre of black magic rituals on the islands where they are found. Most waganga will take their subjects to a special tree, where they may tie ornaments to the branches to give a spell its power, hammer nails into the trunk to kill devils, or climb and sit in the branches whilst carrying out various ceremonies.
The wood being soft, it is subject to attacks of fungus which destroy its life, and renders the part affected easily hollowed out. This is done by natives, and within these hollows they suspend the dead bodies of those who are refused the honor of burial. There they become mummies - perfectly dry and well preserved - without any further preparation of embalmment.

Death is a low chemical trick played on everybody except baobab trees.
- JJ Furnas



West African Tours
We show you the very best that Gambia has to offer in adventure, cultural, bird watching,fishing, roots heritage, sports fishing, four wheel drive, safari and day tours. We also offer Senegal, Ghana and Mali tours.
Enjoy Your Gambia Experience With Us!
220 449 5258
watours@qanet.gm
watours@gamtel.gm
watours@gmail.com 
http://www.westafricantours.com/


Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Gambia Market



West African Tours
We show you the very best that Gambia has to offer in adventure, cultural, bird watching,fishing, roots heritage, sports fishing, four wheel drive, safari and day tours. We also offer Senegal, Ghana and Mali tours.
Enjoy Your Gambia Experience With Us!
220 449 5258
watours@qanet.gm
watours@gamtel.gm
watours@gmail.com 
http://www.westafricantours.com/