Adama Bah- The Travel Foundation project coordinator-The Gambia.

Adama helped in designing the ‘Gambia is Good’ GiG project and he is presently engaged as the project coordinator of the Travel Foundation which is funding projects in the Gambia that supports local communities and the conservation of the environment.

It was in 1995 when Adama Bah formed a small advocacy group in The Gambia known as Gambia Tourism Concern (GTC). During a GTC Workshop funded by the British High Commission on Private Small Scale and Community –Based Tourism Enterprises the idea of creating a trade association of small scale enterprises in tourism (ASSET) emerged. www.asset-gambia.com 

Adama help founded the organisation and the International Centre for Responsible Tourism secured Tourism Challenge Fund monies for an initiative  to work in partnership with the private sector and government to create better economic and social relationships between the informal  sector poor producers, the industry and tourists. Over two years this project was able to organise the informal sector, build its capacity and to improve the earnings of poor producer groups – see the report which Adama and Dr. Harold Goodwin wrote together at http://www.propoortourism.org.uk/15_Gambia.pdf 

It was at the end of this project that the steering committee that was being consulted for its implementation was transformed into the Responsible Tourism Partnership. The partnership involves the informal sector, the Gambian industry and the European based tour operators, and the government. Adama was engaged as the Destination Manager of the partnership, to help in further developing a multi-stakeholder approach to securing change through consultation in The Gambian tourism industry.
 
Furthermore Adama Bah founded the International Centre for Responsible Tourism-West Africa. It was established as a regional training centre in West Africa to help in the training of a significant number of Gambian and West African men and women on issues of Responsible Tourism. So far three courses were organised: One on issues and principles of Responsible Tourism, the other on Pro-poor tourism development and the last one which took place in November 2006 was on marketing Responsible Tourism in Destinations. All these courses looked at how tourism could be used to maximise benefits for local communities.

In November 2004 Adama Bah won an international award as the person who made The Greatest Contribution to Responsible Tourism. The event was at the World Travel Market and it was organised by RESPONSIBLETRAVEL.COM in association with The Times, Geographical Magazine and World Travel Market.

Internationally Adama bah is well known as an advocate of Responsible Tourism; he has travelled widely to put the case of the poor and disadvantaged on the global agenda.