21 Nov 2022

The tourism sector has the potential to create jobs due to its ability to stimulate growth in other sectors linked to travel and tourism.

Officiating at Botswana Guides Association (BOGA) annual conference and general meeting under the theme: Focusing on transformation and new experiences’, acting minister of Environment and Tourism, Mr Sethabelo Modukanele said the theme goes well with government agenda to transform the country’s economy from a middle-income status to a higher-income status.

“Government has set five key priorities to build momentum that will carry us towards the goal of becoming a high-income country and as such, I challenge BOGA to reset and contribute to a new way of doing things,” he added.

Mr Modukanele noted that the ministry’s responsibility Under the transformation agenda , he said the ministry would bring reforms in both the tourism and environmental sectors.

 With regards to tourism, Mr Modukanele said  the ministry’s key responsibility was to drive citizen economic empowerment to promote effective participation of Batswana in the economic growth and development of the country.

He appreciated that BOGA was a key player in the delivery of the ministry’s mandate as it focused on the growth and development of tourism. The association, he said had achieved a lot in terms of empowering citizens and promoting participation in the industry.

Mr Modukanele further revealed that the association had done well in corporate social investments citing projects undertaken such as funding the construction of the Savuti bridge in Chobe National Park, Third bridge in Moremi Game Reserve, donating sign posts to department of Wildlife and National Parks as well as providing accommodation to 160 delegates at its Campsite for free during the Youth Tourism Expo in 2018.

Despite challenges faced by the association, the minister noted that the COVID-19 pandemic had made the ownership of the tourism economy by citizens even more urgent as that would stimulate the growth of domestic tourism and reduce reliance on international tourists.

Mr Modukanele said  that in spite of the potential the tourism sector hold, there were some challenges that needed to be addressed to ensure transformation citing the limited citizen participation in the industry, inadequate product range and diversity, limited brand equity, inadequate marketing and tourism economic leakages among others.

To deal with the challenges, he said the ministry recently revised Tourism Policy which was passed by Parliament last year. The overall vision of the policy is to facilitate product diversification, promote domestic tourism and increase citizen and local community participation in the development of the sector.

As part of operationalising the policy, he said the National Tourism Strategy and Master Plan 2022 which provides a detailed roadmap for the sustainable development of tourism in the country over the next ten years has been completed.

The acting minister noted that the ministry has also as part of the value chain development and reducing economic leakages completed the Bojanala Cluster Strategy adding that the implementation delayed due to COVID-19 pandemic and budgetary constraints.

The assistant minister of Trade and Investment, Ms Beauty Manake concurred that BOGA was also key in driving her ministry’s mandate which aimed to create a conducive environment for the promotion of investment and trade with a view to diversify and the grow the economy.

Tourism, she said played a critical role in the country’s prosperity and growth and urged BOGA to work with her ministry to facilitate and develop value chain.

“To achieve that, we need to understand what you are doing before we can develop value chain. There is a lot of potential in the tourism industry and with proper support we can all grow the economy,” she added. Ends