Rediscover Botswana Crew Concludes Trip With Pomp
Spira Tlhankane | Monday August 24, 2020 11:46
Minister of Youth Empowerment, Sport and Culture Development, Tumiso Rakgare welcomed the diminutive duo who also travelled with a crew of filmmakers documenting the journey.
Botswana Tourism Organisation (BTO), Chief Executive Officer, Myra Sekgororane said it was a moment of great pride to witness what started off as a concept being concluded successfully for stimulating local travel.
“The support that we got from this project from the sponsors has been invaluable in ensuring the success of the Rediscover Botswana expedition. This was a project to cultivate the culture of local travel by showcasing our local products countrywide. Domestic tourism contributes to local economic developments because tourists purchase more locally produced goods and services,” she highlighted.
Sekgororane added that while tourism was subject to negative developments on the global stage, domestic tourism was less sensitive to crisis and less seasonal or fragile to external conditions that could lead to continuous impact on the economy.
Sekgororane also said the support they got from travel and tourism associations in Botswana in promoting local tourism had been great and therefore humbling and they looked forward to putting together a lot more to grow the market.
For his part, BTO board chairperson, Boitumelo Sekwababe said through the Rediscover Botswana expedition, BTO and expedition crew had jointly demonstrated the power of partnerships.
Sekwababe further said the event could not have come at better time as BTO lost out on a marketing campaign on the need to reignite local products.
“This expedition has highlighted some of Botswana sites that were not well-known. This has clearly gotten us in Botswana to start increasing a bucket list of places to go to,” he said.
He stated that tourism was one of the most important sectors in Botswana because it transcended almost all the socio economic activities and life for little Botswana. Sekwababe said innovative projects such as Rediscover Botswana would continue to promote Botswana’s tourism brand on the global travel and tourism map.
Commenting, Serite recalled how he watched Sekgororoane on television lamenting the loss of jobs in the tourism industry because borders were closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. He said he thought to himself that Batswana could tour the country without need people from outside.
“’The little that I have travelled I have seen that every time I post something about a place, people ask if it is in Botswana. I get a call from a certain establishment saying my post has encouraged a lot of people to make bookings. I realised that perhaps Batswana do not travel because they do not want to but because they do not know where to go. Then, I said maybe we should motivate Batswana to travel and Charles was the natural choice for me because we share a lot in common. We are travellers and friends,” he revealed. He added that they had fun on the trip and Batswana should realise that they don’t need to go outside to have fun too.
For his part, Charles said he could not be in a confined area because it is restless and he loves travelling. He said the lockdown got him trapped and he needed to get out. He said he knew about the country, but during the trip there were places that were a surprise to him like the detour they did during the trip.
“It was one of the most scenic and beautiful places,” he highlighted. He said tourists come to Botswana to see the beautiful country and then they return for the people.
“If you call yourself Motswana and you can’t be proud of something you don’t know, you don’t know this country, you don’t know Bokspits, you have never been inside the Gcwiihaba caves, you don’t know why people go to the delta. You have to know your country to be proud of it,” he challenged.