This blog is running the risk of becoming an anti-airline rant but I feel compelled to mention in passing my Royal Air Maroc experience from Casablanca to The Gambia, not simply because of utterly abysmal customer service from check-in to departure, but because it is doing a great disservice in promoting connectivity between first and purportedly second or third world destinations in Africa.

If you don't want to run the gauntlet of dubious African carriers as part of a trip into the heart of Africa, then certainly for The Gambia at least there are currently only two viable options - Royal Air Maroc out of Casablanca, and Brussels Airlines out of Brussels. In hindsight I wish I had now bitten the Nigerian bullet and taken Arik Air out of Lagos (a one-year-old airline, and so far so good reputation-wise).

Emirates Airline is also launching its Dubai-Dakar routing in September which makes a short hop across to The Gambia a quick fix and one which, I hope, will spur the country's tourism gurus to look at driving awareness and interest. Not such a difficult task as The Gambia already has a sizeable Lebanese population for whom this is a boon, but also for expats looking for an alternative Africa experience.

Gambia's other plus is that it is a predominantly Muslim country, albeit very open, so this also offers tourism legs for a different segment of the Middle East market.

But I made it, I'm here in West Africa's smallest country, and 24 hours in it's already been an eye-opener, from the friendly welcome at immigration and ease-of-access to securing a month-long entry visa, to the team members that I will be working with at the Association of Small Scale Entrepreneurs in Tourism (ASSET)and the UK husband-and-wife team at my award-winning guesthouse (Safari Garden); each of whom is passionate about developing Gambia's sustainable tourism potential for the long-term.