07 Mar 2019

GABORONE - Parliament has learnt that there are 277 licensed safari camps in Botswana.

Minister of Environment, Natural Resources Conservation and Tourism, Mr Kitso Mokaila said majority of the safari camps in Botswana use the .COM domain website and ‘this does not apply to any distinct country.’

Eight safari camps are currently using the BW domain while three are using the CO.ZA domain website, he said.

Mr Mokaila said he could not ascertain as to how much revenue was lost over the past five years because of leakages.

“These do not only occur in the tourism sector but in many other sectors. They occur when products and services are acquired outside the country and when there are limited avenues for spending whilst in the destination country,” he said.

In this regard, he said, consumers pay for inclusive packages from travel agency or tour operator. As a result, he said the service providers at destination would only receive funds due to them.

Mr Mokaila said utilisation of domain website was currently not a requirement for lease renewal. He said some companies used the domain as their marketing offices are based outside the country.

The minister said other reasons advanced in the past were that internet in Botswana was slow, necessitating those that had offices to host their websites outside the country.

He, however said with the improvement of the bandwidth, there had been a positive change especially with some offices relocating to Botswana. He said the ministry would keep following up on the matter to ensure companies licensed in Botswana, use every opportunity to brand the country.

He was answering the specially elected MP, Mr Mephato Reatile who had asked how many safari camps were located in Botswana and using local ‘’bw’’ and ‘’co.za’’ domain in their website.

He had also asked the minister to state the revenue lost for the past five years due to external bookings and why his ministry continued to renew leases for companies that do not promote Botswana by using the local ‘’bw’’ domain. Ends