'No time for complacency' Marole tells elite HATAB summit

| Tuesday April 24, 2007 00:00

 

Marole, who was the guest speaker at this year's 'Open Season', told his audience that it is necessary to raise the level of competition in the tourism sector.

'Open Season' is the annual gathering of players in Botswana's leisure and tourism sector during which they engage in a critical self-analysis of their industry and chart the way forward. It is a prominent event on the HATAB calendar used by the organisation to mark the beginning of the high season of tourism in Botswana.

This year's jamboree was held in the resort town of Kasane in the renowned Chobe District - famous for its elephant herds. Kasane lies on the Botswana side of a nexus of four countries - Zambia, Zimbabwe, Namibia and Botswana itself, making it an ideal starting point for people on a packaged tour.

The resort town is also within minutes of the celebrated Victoria Falls; from Kasane, the tourist can head straight north and view Mosi-wa-Thunya, which is the more original name of the famous falls, or turn east to enter Zimbabwe to take in the magnificent cascades. The Debswana chief's audience was gathered at the luxurious Mowana Safari Lodge where, in urging them to raise standards, Marole said now was not the time 'to feel that we are in some comfort zone.'

He said because the sector's products were based in nature, they were precious, rare, without substitute and impossible to reproduce. Even so, the tourism sector could not afford complacency:

'The Chobe wilderness competes with, for example, the Nile cruise. Diamond jewellery competes with gold jewellery and other fashion items,' he pointed out.In a highly competitive global market characterised by a consistent and progressive removal of trade barriers, the Botswana industry must offer something different and better.

He called on businesses in tourism to streamline their interests and become more focused on what each was good at: It was for similar reasons that in 2005, Debswana made a conscious decision to opt out of portfolios in which it felt its knowledge was insufficient.
However, Debswana believes it has a role to play in supporting tourism in Botswana, hence it was co-financing - with De Beers - the Okavango Research Project in Maun.
'We are also looking into the possibility of initiating a tourism-related project with communities around the Tsodilo Hills,' Marole said. 'In Jwaneng and Orapa, our state-of-the-art mining and recovery processes, combined with company-owned game parks within the mining lease area, together with the diamonds themselves, offer a great potential for a unique tourist package.'

He was optimistic that the relocation of the De Beers marketing and selling functions to Gaborone and the expansion of diamond processing in the country would bring the diamond industry and the tourism sector - Botswana's two major engines of growth - even closer.  'It will be up to HATAB and its individual members to leverage on the unique opportunities availed by these developments. There will certainly be new and immediate demand on hotel accommodation in Gaborone,' the Debswana chief said.

He encouraged HATAB to support 'true and real citizen empowerment' which could only take place if there was shared commitment between current owners and those Batswana willing and able to take risks in investing in the tourism business.