Botswana tourist visits pass two million mark

The minister told a Kgotla meeting in Kanye yesterday that last year, an estimated 2.1 million tourists visited the country. He said that the average estimated annual growth rate of arrivals between 2006 and 2010 stand at 10.7 percent. The average length of stay of international tourists is 5.3 days.  Domestic tourist arrivals, or overnight tourist trips, were for the first time calculated in 2010 and they stood at about 1.2 million visitors with expenditure for both day and overnight trips standing at P955 million, the minister said at the commemoration of the World Tourism Day in Kanye. 

During the same period, international tourist expenditure was P4.7 billion with an average expenditure of P429 per person per night.   "Tourism contribution to the gross domestic product (GDP) in the same year stood at 3.7 percent with accommodation room and bed occupancy rates at 48.1 percent and 40.7 percent respectively," he said.