02 Apr 2023

Resuscitation of the National Tourism Development Master Plan and Strategy (NTDMP) has identified several focus areas to aid the recovery of the tourism sector.

Answering a parliamentary question on behalf the Minister of Environment and Tourism, Assistant, Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, Mr Mabuse Pule said the processes for preparation of the master plan and strategy were started in 2019 and were disrupted by COVID-19, but were later kindled in 2022.

He said focus areas identified to aid recovery of tourism included tourism product development and diversification in the form of business tourism such as meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions, and resuscitation of sports and adventure tourism, mining, game ranching historical and cultural tourism.

Mr Pule also cited the citizen inclusion in the tourism sector to make the sector more accessible to locals through value chain development as well as reserving curtain investment opportunities for Batswana.

“The tourism industry was one of the hard hit sectors in the country and globally due to impacts of COVID-19 pandemic,” said Mr Pule.

Furthermore, he noted that the Tourism Arrival Statistics Report of 2020 showed that Botswana had recorded over 81 per cent decline in the visitor arrival during COVID-19, from 1 911 308 in 2019 to 358 225 during the peak of COVID-19 in 2020.

“A survey by Botswana Tourism Organisation (BTO) estimated that 8.1 per cent of staff employed in the tourism facilities were laid-off in April 2020. Retained staff were on varying conditions of employment from paid and unpaid leave as well as reduced wages,” he said.

Still on employment in the tourism sector, he said, COVID-19 impact monitoring survey was undertaken by BTO in December 2021, which showed that on average, each tourism facility was operating with 44.6 per cent of the pre-COVID-19 staff during the period of survey.

“The survey results show that an estimated total of 13 085 people were employed at the sampled facilities, 279 were laid-off, which translates to 2.1 per cent employment loss.

This is comparable to 1.6 per cent (433) employment loss among the accommodation and food sector registered by Statistics Botswana between quarter four of 2020 and quarter four of 2021. This was an improvement from the 8.1 per cent recorded during the first survey,” he said.

Mr Pule shared that the latest results of the Quarterly Multi-Topic Survey (QMTS) conducted by statistics Botswana showed that employment in the accommodation and food services sector increased from 26 086 in the quarter four of 2021 to 30 955 in quarter four of 2022 depicting an increase of 18.6 per cent in employment. 

“This shows that the sector has surpassed the pre-COVID-19 employment level of 22 071 in quarter four of 2019,” he added.

Several initiatives, he said, were put in place to preserve jobs in the sector such as the national economic response plan that offered wage subsidies to businesses in the most affected sector such as the tourism sector which ensured that majority of employees were kept in their jobs.

As part of the recovery strategy, Mr Pule explained that the ministry continued to facilitate the tourism industry in participating at the different travel fairs, where travel packages were sold, adding that such platforms allowed the industry to rekindle with Pre-COVID business partners in order to re-confirm that they were still in operation, as well as to establish new business partners.

“My ministry has also embarked on specific targeted marketing campaigns to enhance the destination presence in the markets, to regain and exceed pre-pandemic performance, thus showing the world that Botswana is open for business,” he said.

Mr Pule noted that the promotion of domestic tourism was one of the key interventions that the Ministry of Environment and Tourism had identified to facilitate resilience and sustainability against future threats and disruptions such as that caused by COVID-19.

“The aim is to sustain and aid recovery of the sector through domestic patronage when global travel restrictions are imposed. To this end, the ministry has partnered with the local industry to develop packages that are suitable and affordable to the domestic market, intensified the domestic travel campaign,” he said.

The ministry, he said, continued to hold and support several events aimed at stimulating domestic tourism growth through notable events such as Kazungula Bridge Marathon, Khawa Dune Challenge and Makgadikgadi Epic.

“It is expected that these efforts will stimulate growth and recovery of the sector and ultimately resuscitate the closed businesses and create more employment opportunities,” he said, noting that the events would cause movement across the country, thus spreading economic activity through the different sectors including tourism, retail and the informal sector.

Notable initiatives aimed at economically empowering Batswana, Mr Pule stated, included opening of new sites to locals for tourism development through concessions and dams tourism.

He said in order to influence destination competitiveness, mentoring was done with operators towards the improvement of services in the sector so that the industry could assure the markets of the destinations readiness to host guest post COVID-19.

Lobatse legislator, Dr Thapelo Matsheka had asked the Minister of Environment and Tourism to apprise Parliament on whether there was a re-visit of the National Tourism Development Plan post COVID-19.

He also asked the minister to provide an overview on the impact of COVID-19 on tourism in terms of the numbers of business and employment versus pre-COVID-19 Botswana Tourism statistics, and also wanted to understand the plans in place for resuscitating businesses especially Small Medium Enterprises and bringing back the lost jobs. ends