Botswana: Land of the foreigner
Monkagedi Gaothobogwe | Monday June 29, 2015 16:32
The number of visitors to Botswana has over the years surpassed the country’s population. The visitors, mostly on short stay, come from over ten countries in the Americas, over 21 European countries, and from all over Africa and Asia. Botswana has become a beehive of activities for the millions of foreign nationals criss-crossing the land.
These figures do not include border jumpers, that is illegal immigrants, who arrive in Botswana from as far as Asia, and neighbouring African countries. One can just imagine the shocking statistics if illegal immigrants were also accounted for. Today, an estimated 2.5 million foreigners are recorded in Botswana in a year, if the latest statistics analysis from Statistics Botswana is anything to go by. This figure has been consistent since 2012 at least, according to the latest statistics analysis released on Friday. In fact, if the laws and policies of the country were to be designed according to the opinions of the majority, they would favour foreigners who make the majority of Botswana residents either as tourists, visitors, in transit and on business.
Put in a nice way, Botswana is truly a tourist’s country, the preferred destination by foreign nationals. They love the beautiful country so much they out number the locals.
Since 2000, tourists figures indicate a very interesting trend where foreigners visiting Botswana always out number the locals, and the trend has been consistent, making Botswana a predominantly non-Batswana country. In fact if the statistics can be tallied together, the population of Botswana inclusive of tourists or foreigners would easily be five million every year in a country where the citizen population is still somewhere below 2.5 million. Actually in 2010 the foreigners’ population in Botswana went over the three million mark, 3.5 million to be exact, against the local population of 1.9 million. That is almost double the population of the country.
By 2012 the foreign population was still hovering around the 2.5 million mark, against Botswana’s population of two million.
Is it the peaceful nature of Botswana, the diamond glow, the low corruption index, or simply its central location in the southern African map which makes it a melting pot of multi-national movements year in and year out? From the latest statistics analysis holidaying account for 18.3% per cent of the 2.6 million foreigners that were reported in 2013. Majority of the visitors, 33.1% were reported to be in transit, passing through Botswana to neighbouring countries.
Predictably Zimbabwean nationals accounted for the majority of figures, with 825.717, reported for the 2013 alone.
The next common visitor is curiously a South African. As an economic giant in Africa, one would think South African citizens’ movement to the rest of the continent would be minimal, but here it is, there were 742,639 South Africans coming in and out of Botswana in the latest report, while the Zambians also make their heavy presence felt at 331, 799, followed by Namibians at 169.733
Botswana also recorded some 184,717 Europeans visiting Botswana in 2013 alone, with Britain and Germany accounting for 94,263 between them, as over 26 European nationalities were recorded. From the Americas, the USA tops with 139,752 visitors, followed by Canada (27,242). Surprisingly the Chinese visitors are being out-numbered by the Japanese and Indians in the latest census, which despite popular belief, is a mere 46, 860 Asians setting foot in Botswana over the survey period.