Friday, February 7, 2025

Mokaila urges industry to jerk-up productivity

The Minister of Environment, Wildlife and Tourism, Kitso Mokaila, on Monday urged the stakeholders in the tourism industry to ensure that the tourist visitations to Botswana are built on good relations with customers through good customer service.

Speaking at the annual Tourism Pitso, Mokaila said the practice of production of good quality standards of goods also should be the best in the industry.

He also said economic diversification should also be a driving force for the tourism industry as well as good health and education.

“Travel means jobs, infrastructure, trade and development. We must reinforce our position as a primary income and jobs creator. Let us grow tourism, fight climate change and advance development,” he said.

It was also highlighted that competing with other international stakeholders is also a challenge to Botswana’s tourism industry.

The Department of Tourism under the Ministry of Environment Wildlife and Tourism held the 5th anniversary of “Tourism Pitso” on Monday.

This year, the theme is “Tourism and Biodiversity”. The two day seminar was held at Gaborone International Convention Centre.

The main aim of the workshop was to revisit the updates on Tourism Pitso 2009 and the Ministry has been in contact with all key stakeholders to activate their action and response to issues raised in the previous workshop.

The workshop, together with the exhibitions, was a follow-up of the progress made by concerned Ministries in support of the noble initiative.

Participants at the workshop included The Department of Wildlife and National Parks, Botswana Tourism Board, Civil Aviation Authority of Botswana, Air Botswana and Botswana Tourism Organization to mention but a few.

Some of the issues raised during the “Pitso” 2009 were the implementation of management plans for National parks and game reserves, privatisation of Air Botswana, funding of tourism projects, internet connectivity and freezing of change of land use in Gaborone.

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