06-01-2010
Yuna Village Garden Resort - ecotourism in The Gambia
Yuna Village Garden Resort in The Gambia, officially inaugurated in April 2009, has opened the gates for a new tourist season. An eco journey to Yuna Village Garden Resort supports the local community and environment. Local schools, educational sponsorships, multicultural projects are some of the good causes supported by your holiday there.
While "eco" comes originally from eco-system, it has grown to mean more than nature tourism, having a significant impact not only on the ecological, but also the economical, social and cultural environment of the country. The involvement of the local community has an important role in this process.
Yuna Village Garden Resort, with its 12 bungalows, is set a 20 minutes walk from Yuna, a small village with some 2000 inhabitants in the Kombo North region, in the middle of untamed nature. The distance from Banjul Airport is 30 minutes by car.
Each journey to Yuna Village Garden Resort is unique, specially designed around the specific fields of interests and individual requests. Tourists can choose from a variety of activities: bush walks, bird watching, drumming, kora playing, dancing, tie & dye, African cooking lessons. Visiting the local community and experiencing life with a Gambian family in their home is also very much appreciated by travellers. Meeting and interacting with the local people are probably some of the most moving experiences they will take back home from here.
"The genuine hospitality so typical for the smiling coast of Africa is opening minds and hearts, creating opportunities to learn from each other", says Modou Joof, Managing Director of Yuna Village Garden Resort. "We are here to show how tourism can be a powerful tool in achieving good - for both people and environment."
Some years ago, a bunch of Swedish school kids travelled to The Gambia. They also wanted to improve their skills on the djembe drums - commonly a quite noisy experience, not appreciated by traditional hotel rules. This is when the idea was born to create a place appropriate for singing and dancing and drumming, but in the same time comforting and inspiring for the soul, being set away from hectic life, in the heart of genuine Gambian nature.
Yuna Village Garden Resort has an important role in supporting the local community and businesses. The food served at the restaurant is either produced in the own flourishing garden or purchased from the farmers in the region. Local handcrafters are promoted at the resort by exposing and selling their products. For the various workshops in music and dancing, the teachers and entertainers are carefully selected from the nearby villages.
Members of the staff working at Yuna Village Garden live close to the resort. This way, they can still continue with their farming activities and not be exclusively dependant on the tourist season's ups and downs.
Yuna Village Garden has also a long term commitment to cultural exchange and support projects between schools in Sweden and in The Gambia.
Being an active member of ASSET (Association of Small Enterprises in Tourism) and its Climate Care Group, Yuna Village Garden Resort is also striving to make a difference in environmental issues, like participating in tree planting projects to offset deforestation.
The resort is also self-catering when it comes to electricity and water supply. Tourists are encouraged to use these resources prudently.
Yuna Village Garden Resort is much more than a hotel and a restaurant in a beautiful environment. It rather represents a concept in the good spirit of ecotourism, with many opportunities yet to be explored and developed.
"We at Yuna Village Garden Resort aim to be recognized for our ability to enrich the traveller and offer entirely new, unexpected experiences; to help re-discover the essence of travelling, which would ultimately be to broaden one's views of people and the world, concludes Modou Joof. Welcome to your own special journey!"
See you at our booth C1-40 in the Globetrotter area of hall C at Ferie i Bella 2010.
www.yunavillagegarden.com
Contact: Modou Joof, Managing Director
Phone: +46 709 494 963; +220 7000949
Email: modou.joof@yunavillagegarden.com
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