06 May 2018

Tourism players have been encouraged to appreciate the role of research in its development.

Officiating at the Hospitality and Tourism Association of Botswana (HATAB) recently, University of Botswana (UB) Vice Chancellor, Professor David Norris said some studies show that data on tourism in Africa was limited or unreliable.

Prof. Norris said market trends, policy revisions, consumer profiles and determining products and services were all areas that needed research as a basis.

He noted that Botswana needed to diversify from nature tourism to other aspect as culture, heritage, business, sports tourism, agro-tourism, entertainment and medical tourism.

However, Prof. Norris said such tourism aspects could be explored only with substantial research availed.

Again, he said challenges associated with tourism as human-wildlife conflicts and tourism economic benefits to reduce poverty also needed research.

Prof. Norris noted that given the notion that tourism marginalised communities further as they remained poorer, those in the tourism sector therefore needed to collaborate for research that would contribute to the development of the sector.

He observed that small businesses believed research was costly while bigger businesses assumed they did not need research.

Prof. Norris noted that some researches had been undertaken in Botswana but not utilised because findings were not shared.

The tourism sector, he said was the fastest growing industry with 12 per cent growth of tourists in Africa since 2000.

He noted that the sector was key to most developing countries and had a role in fighting poverty.

Further, he indicated that the tourism sector contributed about P6 billion to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and created about 25 000 employment in Botswana.

He however said its market share was about six per cent. Ends