04 May 2021

Tsodilo Hills World Heritage Site manager, Mr Powel Motsumi, says the number of people visiting the site has declined drastically, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mr Motsumi said this when the Minister of Environment, Natural Resources Conservation and Tourism, Ms Philda Kereng visited the site recently.

He said the area used to receive over 15 000 visitors per annum, but now they received over 2 000 and majority were from Botswana.

Prior to the pandemic, Mr Motsumi said the Tsodilo Development Trust used to enjoy good profit due to international tourists.

He  said the heritage site was the first in Botswana to be inscribed on the World Heritage list in 2011 on the basis of its outstanding rock art, evidence of a long history of settlement and its intangible heritage as a sacred place.

Because of its historical and cultural importance, he said, Tsodilo was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2002, further explaining that some rock paintings represented thousands of years of human inhabitation.

Meanwhile, in an interview after the tour, Mr Motsumi explained that the site was receiving congregations from different churches every year for their religious activities, adding that Tsodilo was viewed as a sacred, mystical place where ancestral spirits dwelt.

The churches, he said, performed their religious activities in the evening, adding that some paid for entrance while others failed to pay because of financial constraints.

Since they were promoting domestic tourism, he said the trust was lenient on some clients and allowed them to enter because they had observed that some used ungazetted entrance to access the site.

Minister Kereng was on a mission to appreciate the heritage site and engage the community on how best they could expand the tourism products at their disposal.

She toured the museum and part of the hills. ENDS