By Ralph Sesay
The National Tourist Board has disclosed at the ongoing budget hearings that the country is projecting 40,000 tourists into the country in the next five months.
Fatmata Abe-Osagie, General Manager, National Tourist Board Sierra Leone, told the Committee that the projection by the Board if informed by the series of events which will be organized by the Ministry of Tourism and Culture, Monument and Relics Commission, National Tourist Board and the private sector.
She also disclosed that Sierra Leone has recorded 56,500 visitors arrival for the period January to December 2018 and 36,083 for the first half of 2019.
Quite recently, Sierra Leone introduced a Free Visa on landing policy for visitors or tourists visiting the country.
This was deemed as a very serious challenge for Sierra Leoneans and other visitors who want to come into the country, and this was largely because the country had few embassies and consular offices across the world.
Despite this breakthrough, it is reported by the World Bank that Sierra Leone still remains the most expensive high destination point in the world.
Lack of investment in the sector is challenging the attraction of the country’s beaches as tourist attraction sites to tourists across the world.
Many of the facilities and tourists lack basic services such as good roads, water and electricity to make them very attractive and friendly to visitors and tourists.
The New Direction Government promised in April, 2018 to diversify the economy and tourism was identified as one of the Ministries that will generate the much needed foreign exchange and jobs for the country.
Despite all the promised budgetary support to the sector remains very low and delayed.
The National Tourist Board is requesting for little over twelve (12) billion Leones for the 2020 fiscal year to effectively take on their various projects to continue to attract tourists into the country.
They have underscored the point that funds to the authority are very low and unnecessarily delayed.