Tourism diversification in Botswana - a stakeholder perspective.

Abstract

The paper examines the prospects of tourism product diversification in the tourism industry of Botswana. The government of Botswana is faced with the challenge of diversifying the economy and tourism has been proposed as one of the key clusters to lead the needed diversification. Tourism in Botswana is largely wildlife based. A review of tourism diversification discourse suggests that it improves destination competitiveness, overcomes the issues of seasonality and distributes tourists to other areas thereby ensuring industry sustainability. The methodological approaches to the study blended a mix of extensive literature reviews, document analysis, primary data collection through open ended and closed questionnaires to provide a balanced examination of the challenges and the opportunities of tourism product diversification. We conclude that there is need to diversify the tourism industry in Botswana through events, culture and sports tourism. Though sustainability and competitiveness are common objectives for tourism diversification, the stakeholders in Botswana regard it as an avenue to create employment for the local community and alleviate poverty. The study therefore recommends that the government, together with key stakeholders invest in the events industry, upgrade sports facilities and work with communities to reposition the local culture as a key tourism asset.

Keywords

• Tourism diversification
• stakeholders
• sustainability
• Botswana