Over the last few years, the amount of contribution tourism has been making to the economy of Botswana as a proportion of GDP has been growing.
That growth has also been in real terms.
To their credit, the Government of Botswana has identified tourism as a key sector that could be developed and harnessed not only to bring cash into the kitty, but also to help reduce the country’s excessive dependence on diamonds.
In that score Government has gone to great lengths to make investments in tourism as attractive and as lucrative as possible.
While a few years ago the sector, especially in the pristine destinations in the north, remained almost exclusively confined to non-Batswana, the last few years have seen Batswana venture into tourism.
Government should also be commended for tackling the issue of racism.
The issue has not died, but it has somewhat subsided.
Like encouraging more Batswana to venture into tourism, the fight against racism is work in progress.
Having said that, we want to hasten to point out that a lot still has to be done to empower communities that stay in the vicinity of tourism destinations.
Take Okavango Delta, for example.
While tourist operators continue to make money, outside the resorts, the villages continue to be hives of poverty.
There are very few linkages between the tourism economy and the lives of villagers in the vicinity.
Incidentally, our leaders frequent these places and yet they seem least concerned.
Either it is because many of our leaders are themselves a part of the aloof tourism operating ventures, or they simply do not give a damn about seeing so much squalor; want in poverty existing side by side with wealth and opulence that come with the dollar wielding tourists from the west.
This coexistence of wealth and poverty is not only confined to Okavango.
The same applies to the Chobe as well as the Tuli Block enclaves.
It is difficult to see how the wealthy operators are able to get a reassurance of the long term sustainability of the businesses when such businesses exist next to such degrading poverty, unemployment and want.
Of course, tourism operators do provide employment, however menial, to these communities but the truth is that there are no coherent plans to integrate these communities into the bigger economy that is extracted from natural resources in their area.
That, we think, is one area that should be of concern to our policy makers.
Integrating these communities into the tourism economy has many benefits.
Because it helps communities to appreciate the true value of resources to themselves they in the end become active participants in the conservation efforts.
A failure to integrate these communities inevitably breeds despondency among them because communities ultimately tend to view themselves as outsiders.
That defeats all attempts to promote conservation of the natural resources, without which tourism itself becomes unsustainable.
While we recognize the efforts that have been made both by the Ministry of Tourism but also by such organisations like Botswana Tourism Organisation, we worry a lot about the sustainability and staying power of what has been achieved so far unless communities surrounding our key tourism areas get to directly feel the positive things into their every daily lives that are a result of tourism.
