General Manager (National Tourist Board)

Sierra Leone has a wonderful heritage and history of many firsts in Africa. The country has experienced outstanding growth over the past decade making it one of the fastest growing economies in the world. In your own words, what makes Sierra Leone unique? What are the main comparative advantages that Sierra Leone has to offer to the international investor’s community?

Sierra Leone has a lot of comparative advantages in terms of tourism. The first thing that has come to our knowledge recently is that Sierra Leone is a very peace loving country. It has been through two (2) terrible episodes in its history but it has always overcome this difficulties. We have the difficulty with the war; the country was resilient in overcoming that difficulty. Also, we have the difficulty with the Ebola, which we overcome too. Now, Sierra Leone is contributing to the peace of the region and of the world participating in peace building. So it is that part alone that makes it unique. Imagine a country coming from war and already participating in peace building. Another aspect is religious tolerance in the country. Muslims and Christians intermarriage and can live peacefully. That aspect of Sierra Leone also has got comparative advantage to other countries in the region. We come to the natural beauty of the country. It is endowed with natural beaches. According to some scientist, they say we have so many types of sand beaches we have golden sand, we have white sand, we have a little bit of brownish sand among others. You can see these types of sands along the peninsula. The sand in Hamilton is different from the sand at River No2 and the sand in Token is different from that in the Hamilton and River No2 and Banana Island as well. Each of these beaches has a unique type of sand from the other. No wonder the colour of the Sierra Leone flag is green, white and blue. The green depict the forestry, the white represent the landscape and the blue is the sea and it shows the peace. Sierra Leone recently has done a great job in the history of development. After it difficulties, it became one of the fastest growing economies in the world. As far as economy touristic potential is concerned, many of our potential have not being tapped into. So now we are looking at the development of ecotourism sites into different parts of the country. For instance, we have five (5) ecotourism sites where we are developing now. There is one in Kabala called Wara Wara Mountain; the second one is the Takogama, also in the River No2, again Banana Island, which makes it four (4), and TY, which makes it five (5).  All these are very unique tourist sites and we want to improve them to attract international tourists and their rich biodiversity. Now coming back to the sites we have other places like Otamba Kilime National Park, OKNP for short. Then we also have the Gola forest. This forest is so big that majority of it is in Liberia. We are going to organise a road show with (5) five European Countries, starting with Germany, Belgium, France, Netherlands and England. So these are the five (5) countries we want to target. The numbers of tourist arrival have increased drastically. Then reason we have been having low numbers of tourist arrival is because we have not being using the potentials we have. We were only using air arrivals and there are so many other arrivals that come to Sierra Leone through the borders. So the National Tourist Board has put up another interesting package of putting tourist information officers to all our entry point in order to take tourist around the country. We do have chances of tourist to get visas on arrivals, just that the procedure is a little bit different compares to other countries. If you have a group flying into Freetown, all you have to do is to contact The National Tourist Board that you have a group of tourist coming into the country. They will be given landing visas on arrival and it lasts up to a month without renewal. Coming back to peace, it is another advantage we have for people who feel threatened in other countries. It is very peaceful here and we can assure tourists that they are going to feel a lot safer in Sierra Leone than in any other country in the world. Sierra Leone is not too big enough. You can stay here a week and can travel almost all across the country and get to see different things like very rich cultures, heritage tourism, etc.

The Ebola outbreak has had quite an impact on the tourism sector - What do you think has to be done through you in other to change people’s perception? What is The National Tourist Board doing in other to communicate about how safe and free the country is now?

We have done lots of outreach talking about “how Sierra Leone is not Ebola and Ebola is not Sierra Leone”, a phrase coined by even Brussels airlines. We just celebrated one (1) year of Sierra Leone being free from Ebola, which is a good message to pass on to people who want to know about the country. The country has moved on from the Ebola tragedy. It is also nice to let people know that even during the course of the Ebola, there were developments taking place. For instance, there are hotels going to be opened next year they were doing their construction during the time of the Ebola epidemic. It was just negative publicity that was given out. During the time of the Ebola, we followed the procedures laid down by the WHO and people were doing their different activities. No wonder brands like the Hilton and KLM are coming up. So there are prospects in the tourism industry. Right now looking at the current trend of Development especially the emphasis put by the current government has made tourism to gain recognition as one of the strategic sectors in the recovery strategy. There are three (3) priorities that the president named during the recovery; agriculture, fisheries and tourism. The Ebola brought in health awareness and safety awareness into the operations of the lives of the people and even the tourism industry. It has educated the staffs in the industry about hygiene. The tourism industry has put it across to the government for Sierra Leone to have a national carrier. That will help with the issues like landing visas on arrival; you will fly with air Sierra Leone for instance because you know that you do not need a visa to get into the country. Secondly, it will reduce the cost of the tickets because somehow government might subsidies a little bit so that we will have more passengers flying into the country. Talking about the regional, we look at the Nigerian market. From here to Nigeria is three (3) hours flight and if we have a direct flight from Nigeria to Freetown, that will enhance regional tourism. You have medium income folks and those who are even rich. Now that Nigeria is having Difficulties, they could fly in here for honeymoons, holidays and weekend getaway. So if we provide these packages to our regional neighbours, we will diversify the market and help us build good platform of development.

The Tourism has got a vision and plan to make Sierra Leone an attractive destination for European tourism - There are already countries that have a nice spot like Senegal and Ivory Coast were lot of people want to go. How do you intend to compete with these two (2) giants for example?

Well, it is very difficult to compete with them because of their historical development but when you look at the similarities, they are all there. Let take a look at Ivory Coast, they too went through a short war and they have recovered. What happened during this time, they had lots of investments in their sector and that has helped them. So what we are saying now to Ivory Coast for instance, it is one of the countries within the ECOWAS. Recently, we had discussions with the National carrier; Air Cote d’Ivoire and so what we discussed with them will soon take place for Air Cote d’Ivoire to start being a link from Sierra Leone to the regional airline. We have the difficulties of people flying from here to Europe and elsewhere but Air Cote d’Ivoire flies to our country on a daily basis. So it means we would have a connecting flight to other countries instantly. You can leave here and go to Cote d’Ivoire and they will link you up to France, America or Asia just within the next day. So, that makes it faster for people to come into our country. We have also discussed of having a regional tourism fare like the one we have in Europe, so they will bring their unique historical exhibitions and we too will bring ours and people will be able to look at the advantages we have. You will only be able to see your benefit when you compare. The historical aspect of Senegal is almost the same with Sierra Leone; the slave trade. There beaches are not as beautiful as ours and they have like five (5) hours flight from Europe to Senegal and it six (6) hours from Europe to Freetown. The people are hospitable and the food is really good, so there is a possibility that we can do even better.

Sierra Leone has got a big tourism future – what are the numbers of arrivals you wish to accomplish within the next five (5) to ten (10) years?

Currently we have about 70,000 or 80,000.  2013 was a good year with over 80,000 people that came in and it dropped almost to half of that in 2014/2015 because of the Ebola. With KLM coming it going to be three (3) flight a week, Brussels also three (3) flight a week and then Air France will have three (3) flight a week, then you have QA, Air Cote d’Ivoire all on a daily basis. We are looking at getting a regional thing looking at Morocco, Egypt for instance there are lot of unique historical potential with Sierra Leone. They have developed their tourism industry and have a big population of Muslims, which can be very helpful. When you talk about culture, Egypt has the best and they want to help us rehabilitate our museum and tourist zones.  We have plans to open tourist affairs in China so that we will have lot of flights coming into Sierra Leone. We have lot of Chinese company here and those people working for them have families and friends.  Imagine each have their families and friends come to visit. Then the number we are looking at will become ten times more. So within the next five (5) to ten (10) years we will have half a million arrivals into the country.

According to an interview the minister has done with the AWOKO News, he believes that the tourism industry can sustain Sierra Leones’s economy - in what sense, do you think this can happen?

The president has express three (3) major sectors in the history recovery package. One is agriculture, fisheries and tourism. Looking at all the activities on tourism, I believe that tourism will be able to sustain Sierra Leone. We focus more on international tourism and domestic tourism as well and with a bust in these two, tourism can sustain the country’s economy.  

What are you most proud of since you were appointed here?

We have a tourism development Act that says, if a land is allocated to you within three (3) years you should develop it. That law has never being enforced. I came up with the enforcement policy and those people who have been given these lands have started developing them. And for those who fail to do so, the lands are taken from them and given to potential developers. I am so proud of that, and also the streetlights along the beaches and safety around the beaches have improved since I was appointed here. So these are some of the things I have accomplished so far.

What message will you leave for our readers?

Sierra Leone is known as a hidden paradise because of it huge potentials. Even for us, we have not yet being able to discover the country’s entire full potential. So Sierra Leone is a beautiful country and ones you come, you will love it here. Our food is great, beautiful sites; rich culture and the people are hospitable. So come and experience this hid