By Allieu Sahid Tunkara
Sierra Leone’s deputy minister of tourism has disclosed that the country lost over 20,000 foreign pleasure seekers between 2013 and 2014 due to the outbreak of the Ebola virus.
Kadie Sesay told a weekly journalists in Freetown that “in 2013 the tourist industry attracted 52, 226 tourists, and that number has reduced to 32, 223 this year.”
She said the reduction was amidst cancellation of many flights as there were only Air Maroc and Brussels Airlines actively operating in the country.
The minister said the absence of tourists had left behind closure of beach bars and nightclubs and low income realisation in the hotel business.
In an exclusive interview with Politico, Classification and Quality Control Manager at the National Tourist Board, Ibrahim Turay, said the tourist industry was one of the most affected sectors by the Ebola crisis, and the industry had lost huge amounts of money.
He added that they expected a further decline in the number of tourists if the Ebola epidemic was not tackled by the end of December.
A report presented by the finance minister, Kaifala Marah, in August of this year stated that tourists’ arrivals at the Freetown International Airport in Lungi had “dropped by 21% in the first seven months of 2014.”
The report, a preliminary assessment of the impact of Ebola outbreak on the Sierra Leone economy, further stated that occupancy rates in hotels, which had improved between 2012 and 2013, had dropped drastically from “an average of 50% before the Ebola outbreak in May to less than 10% between July and August, 2014”.
© Politico 25/11/14
