Cultural tourism: new opportunities for diversifying the tourism industry in Botswana
Cultural tourism: new opportunities for diversifying the tourism industry in Botswana

Summary/Abstract: Botswana is known as a wilderness and safari-tourism destination,which attracts high-end overseas visitors to the country. Since the 1990s the country’stourism policy has been based on a so called ‘High Value – Low Volume’(HVLV) strategy referring to the aim of attracting limited numbers of tourists withhigh expenditure patterns. However, while such tourism operations have contributedto the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the country and offered investmentopportunities for international companies, the position of Botswana as a HVLVdestination is increasingly criticised. It is seen as offering too narrow prospectsfor the growth of the industry and for the local participation and benefit sharingin tourism in future. Hence, there is a need for diversification of the product withdeeper involvement of local people to tourism. Therefore, communities and Botswana’scultural and heritage attractions are increasingly seen as one of the futurecornerstones of tourism development. This paper provides an overview of culturaltourism with specific reference to existing cultural and heritage attractions andthe potential thereof for tourism in Botswana. The paper concludes that while therole of culture is still underutilised in tourism, the cultural tourism in Botswanahas the potential to contribute to a more equitable distribution of tourism-baseddevelopment and the related benefits for local communities.

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