18 Jul 2023

The COVID-19 pandemic has assisted most African airlines and the tourism sector to reinvent for survival, says the Minister of Environment and Tourism, Ms Philda Kereng.

Speaking at a panel discussion under the topic; Aviation, Runaway for Travel, Tourism and Trade at the just ended US-Africa Business Summit the minister said now that the pandemic was in the rear mirror, the two sectors were still benefitting from survival strategies that they initiated during the pandemic that helped them float.

Ms Kereng said the pandemic shaped the country’s mindset  and forced the ministry to revise its tourism policy.

“We had to formulate the policy and think of what could take us forth post the pandemic.

We now looked at a tourist as someone who has lost so much, like loved ones and collapsed business. 

This was someone who needed travelling to heal rather than see animals,” she said.

She said that her ministry therefore promoted sectors such as cultural tourism, MICE (Meetings, Interests, Conferences and Exhibitions), a draft of which she said was being finalised.

Ms Kereng also said that government was now tailoring tourism related courses to produce market ready graduates, even for the international market.

She however, admitted that Botswana still needed to improve infrastructure-wise, such as roads, rail networks and even additional airports.

She also said hosting the US-Africa Business Summit demonstrated that Botswana was ready to host international meets.

Ms Kereng said Botswana was even ready to explore the possibility of networking with more airlines to cut transition points from countries such as the USA.

For his part Mr Samson Berele, the head of Ethiopian Airlines said his airline managed to survive COVID-19 because it diversified into cargo, hospitality and evacuations.“Those three sustained us during the pandemic to the point that we did not need to lay off any of our 18 000 staff members or cut their salaries like other airlines did,” he said.

Mr Bekele said during COVID-19, they converted 25 of their planes to cargo to sustain their operations, something which he said was even more pleasurable as they did it through their inhouse expertise.

“The pandemic even helped us discover that cargo was more profitable than people as you do not need to feed it,” he said.

For his part Mr Chaitan Jain from United Airlines said his airline survived through the African Diaspora.

“The Diaspora came in handy because people had to travel to check on their loved one. We tapped on it and it became our primary source of revenue,” he said.

The topic for discussion was meant to look at how the tourism and aviation sectors were impacted by COVID 19, and how they ultimately rose from the ashes. Ends