GABORONE, Feb. 20 – The United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) has applauded Botswana for launching its third Tourism Satellite Account (TSA) by revealing that not many countries in Africa, let alone the world can claim to have compiled the TSA.
Botswana today launched is third Tourism Satellite Account for the reference year 2016. UNWTO hence dubbed Botswana’s efforts as ‘a commendable feat for an exceptional country’.
Speaking during the launch of the standard statistical framework developed by UNWTO and approved by the United Nations Statistical Commission (UNSC) for measuring the economic contribution of tourism to the economy, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Environment, Natural Resources Conservation and Tourism, Jimmy Opelo said the government of Botswana supported the work of collecting and analysing tourism statistics with a desire to improve decision making on strategies and policies for the development of tourism in the country.
The tourism sector is of value to Botswana, as the government appreciates the industry’s ability to provide jobs, make contributions to government revenues while spreading wealth and building skills among other benefits. In order for the sector to significantly contribute to Botswana’s human and socio-economic development, the government of Botswana said they are aware that high quality and timeliness of information and research intelligence are key success factors to successful tourism development and marketing.
Sharing on the key results of the 2016 TSA, Opelo said the results indicate a great improvement on the performance of the sector in comparison with the 2009 results. The Internal Tourism Expenditure, the Permanent Secretary said totalled BWP14.5 billion, showing an increase for the Internal Tourism Expenditure in 2009 which was BWP 5.8 billion.
The Tourism Direct Gross Value Added (TDGVA) for 2016 is said to be BWP 7.7 billion after increasing from the 2009 figure which was 3.7 percent. The estimated contribution of tourism directly plus indirectly to Botswana’s GVA is around 7.6 percent. Opelo said it is also important to note that the length of stay has also increased from 5.32 nights in 2009 to 6.75 nights in 2016.
The TSA for 2016 is the third TSA after the experimental one in 2006/7 while the second TSA was in 2009. The Botswana government desires to carry out the exercise every two years or even annually, but this has not been possible due to a shortage of funds. To this end, the government of Botswana called on the private sector to step up and assist the efforts financially as constant accurate data can help the government advice businesses on how to efficiently run; attracting specific international tourists according to likes and preferred tourism activities and their consumption of goods and services, as would have been informed by accurate statistics. The 2016 TSA in this regard was made possible by funding by the Peace Parks Foundation through the Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA).
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