11 Mar 2013

Botswana is ranked number 39 out of 140 countries for its natural resources, which include the quality of the natural environment, total number of species and terrestrial biome protection, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Environment, Wildlife and Tourism, Mr Neil Fitt has said.

Speaking at the launch of Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report 2013, Mr Fitt said many tourist destinations had emerged alongside the traditional ones noting that from 1980 to 2011, the international tourist arrivals tripled worldwide leaping from 279 million to 996 million tourists.

He said over the past few years, the industry was resilient despite the uncertain global economic outlook characterised by fragile global economic growth, macro-economic tensions and high unemployment rate in various countries.

Mr Fitt noted that this year’s theme: Reducing Barriers to Economic Growth and Job Creation, highlighted the relevance of the travel and tourism industry in generating jobs and fostering economic development.

“Travel and tourism remains a critical sector for development and economic growth for Botswana and the world at large,” he said, adding that developing a strong sector not only supported job creation, but also raised national income and benefitted general competiveness through investments in infrastructural development.

Mr Fitt pointed out that in price competiveness, the travel and tourism industry was at position 12, adding that this resulted from low charges of ticket taxes and airport charges, which were ranked at position seven in the world. However, he noted that the country dropped from position 91 to 94 out of 140 countries this year in competitiveness ranking.

Mr Fitt said other sectors that dropped included air transport infrastructure and ground transport infrastructure at position 89 and 83 respectively, while ICT was no different at number 99.

“There is need to coordinate efforts of all stakeholders that affect the performance of travel and tourism for the good of the nation,” he said, and stressed that without coordinated action, Botswana’s performance at global level would continue to drop.

Other seriously affected areas of competitiveness included the quality of human resources ranked at 128 and availability of qualified labour which stood at 138 worldwide.

For his part, Botswana National Productivity Centre chief executive officer, Mr Baeti Molake explained that part of the competitiveness report was published by Global Economic Forum (GEF).

Giving overview and BNPC partnership with World Economic Forum, Mr Molake said reports of this nature gauged the competitiveness of nations and were meant to indicate to different economies how they faired globally.

He explained that BNPC was involved in competitiveness after realising that productivity was the key driver of competitiveness.

“BNPC is of the view that national endowment do not necessarily lead to competitiveness. You may have diamonds, oil and other natural resources, but if you are not efficient in how you utilise these resources, you will not be competitive,” he said.

Mr Molake also stated that some countries had abundance of natural resources, but due to the fact that they were not using them beneficially, they were not globally competitive. ENDS