Expo focus on selling Botswana as a holiday destination

Botswana’s partnerships with International Travel Bourse and National Geographic will give travellers all the more reasons to visit Botswana. This was highlighted by Jonathan Gibson, Board Member of the Botswana Tourism Organisation (BTO) at the Botswana Tourism and Travel Expo (BTTE) in Kasane.

He said the partnership was part of efforts made to promote the country’s brand awareness so as to constantly remind holiday makers about Botswana as a tourist destination. He said that they recently hosted guests from Ireland who had won a holiday in Botswana. He said their positive views about Botswana will be shared with the world through the travel channel. These are part of efforts to employ testimonial based campaigns to provide authentic feedback to the traveller.

Gibson emphasised that they ensure that in every tourism attraction, locals are meaningfully included. He said this would translate into communities appreciating the importance of the industry in the improvement of their lives, and in turn motivate them to take care of the natural resources in their vicinity.

“Tourism can sustain Botswana as a country even though economic growth has been mainly driven by diamonds they are not forever,” said Gibson. Member of Parliament (MP) for Chobe Ronald Shamukuni shared the same sentiments and encouraged more local participation the tourism sector. He said that BTTE stimulates interest amongst the people of Chobe to venture into tourism.

Shamukuni said that local participation is his core interest and hoped that BTTE has taught Chobe community that it is all attainable. He said that local tourism operators no longer need to worry about attending such platforms outside the country since they now have a homegrown event such as BTTE.

According to the MP tourism is their mainstay in the Chobe region and it supports local economic development substantially. “The beneficiation accruing to us, from the tourism industry cuts across all spheres of economic activity as our people get to be employed and even set up their own businesses,” said Shamukuni.