Gambia retrains "bumsters" to shake sex tourism tag

FAJARA, Gambia, May 18 (Reuters) The young Gambian man in the yellow string vest calls out to a European woman walking along a wide golden beach shrouded in a fine sea mist.

''Hey nice lady! Nice lady, I want to talk to you,'' he yells.

She keeps walking.

''It's nice to be nice,'' he grumbles as he returns to his friends, his matted hair escaping from his cap.

The young man is one of Gambia's ''bumsters'', youths who offer to walk with tourists as they visit markets and beaches in this tiny West African nation and who fend off the attentions of rivals for a small fee.

What is left unsaid but understood is the possibility of a more intimate relationship, that could be a ticket, however temporary, out of poverty.

A week-long relationship could mean three hot meals a day for the Gambian man and a luxury hotel bed to sleep in, plus money for beer or cigarettes.

''I experienced one time when there was a young boy who was trying to get me to his house for 'the real Gambian Experience' as they call it,'' said Wilma, 35, from the Netherlands.

''It was very hard to get rid of him. Yes, he was trying to sell himself,'' said Wilma, who did not want to give her surname.

In many African countries, it is common to see older white men with young local black women, but Gambia, along with some resorts in neighbouring Senegal, has earned a name as a place for older European women to meet young African men.

Now a British hotel manager is working to get the bumsters off the beaches and into legitimate jobs in order to improve Gambia's image.

OLDER WOMEN Precise numbers for the sex tourism industry are hard to get. A 2003 report by UNICEF said 60-70 per cent of visitors to one of the main tourist areas near the capital Banjul were there for ''sun relaxation and cheap sex''.

Flights from Britain regularly arrive with a high proportion of women travelling alone, often visiting younger Gambian men they met on previous visits.

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