14 Mar 2022

Minister of Environment, Natural Resources Conservation and Tourism, Ms Philda Kereng says the ministry together with Botswana Tourism Organisation (BTO) have drawn up a tourism calendar of events for the year 2022. 

Responding to a question in Parliament on Thursday, Ms Kereng said the document listed all the major tourism, cultural and leisure events that would be held in the country this year. She said they would ensure that community trusts where events took place, would generate revenue from the value chain. 

“The Trusts will benefit through accommodation provision, selling of foodstuffs and other logistical arrangements,” she said. 

 The minister said they consulted organisers of major events in the country before finalising the events calendar. She said the list contained events all over the country, including Kazungula Marathon, Tsabong Polka Festival, Shashe, Khawa Dune Challenge, Mascom Derby in Maun, June Challenge Cup in Motokwe, Makgadikgadi Epic and many others. 

 She said some of the events belonged to the BTO while others belonged to community trusts and other entities. She said the ministry assisted organisations guided by the Revised Tourism Policy of 2021. 

 Ms Kereng said the aim was to spread tourism all over the country. 

She further said they wanted to diversify tourism from wildlife to other areas such as cultural, sport, arts and crafts and other forms of tourism. 

 She said even though tourism, entertainment and cultural events were affected by COVID-19 pandemic in the past two years, the ministry continued with implementation of the domestic tourism drive using the ‘Explore Botswana’ initiative. 

 She said the initiative was geared towards promotion of local tourism and highlighted areas of interest for tourism, culture and entertainment activities. 

She said through the initiative they held events in Tswapong, Kgalagadi, North East and other regions observing the COVID-19 protocols. 

“We staged the Gcwihaba Cultural Event on the International Museum Day towards the end of 2020. Last year we repeated the same thing in Tsodilo,” she said. 

 Kgalagadi South MP, Mr Sam Brooks had asked the minister to state which tourism events were earmarked for the 2022 tourism calendar in Botswana. 

Mr Brooks also wanted to know if there were any plans to promote tourism events throughout the country as a way to improve domestic tourism and livelihoods of Batswana by taking advantage of the diverse cultures . Ends