Gambia hotel in Fajara

We are located in a residential area that does not include a ‘traditional community’. However, all of the staff are local people who travel a short distance to work from adjacent urban areas. All staff have paid holidays and many are sponsored to undertake training courses. Some of these are not directly related to their present job but are career-enhancing course. We therefore spend a great deal of time and energy finding ways to benefit the ‘community’ of our staff. We have set up a Staff Welfare Fund and we regularly pay for their more major health needs.

Solar water heating systems have been made at the hotel in conjunction with the Gambia Technical Training Institute, using materials supplied by us to enable the training of their students. We commission local craftsmen to make furniture, uniforms, napery and many other items for us.

We were the first hotel to sign a contract with ‘Gambia is Good’ – a wholesale organisation assisting local farmers to get local vegetables on hotel tables. We buy as much of our food, meat, fish and vegetables as locally as we can. We compost kitchen waste, do not heat water and employ local women rather than machines to do the hotel laundry, use natural rather than chemical sprays for mosquito control and use no fertiliser or pesticides in the hotel gardens – which receive constant praise for their lushness and beauty.