Page 14 - Meetings Botswana 2024 FINAL

14 Meetings Botswana 2024
In addition, Botswana has the potential to grow local
events to an international stature, especially in the areas of
sports and culture. The Kalahari Desert and Makgadikgadi
Pans are already popular due to sports and adventure
events such as the Khawa Dune Challenge and Cultural
Festival, and the Makgadikgadi Epic Skydive Boogie.
This was said by the former Minister of Environment and
Tourism, Philda Kereng in an interview early last year.
Though landlocked, Botswana is centrally located,
and is ideal as a potential centre point for business and
travellers alike. To further position itself as a destination for
MICE in southern Africa, Botswana will require reliable
transport, communication and improved infrastructure in
the hospitality sector.
Therefore, the Government will extensively upgrade
Gaborone’s road network and those of its peri-urban areas
in order to position the City as an events hub. They will
also further replicate the effort being made in other areas
across the country in following years, as the Minister of
Finance, Peggy Serame disclosed in her budget speech this
year. The upgrade will be realised in part from the Ministry
Above: Botswana President
Dr Mokgweetsi Masisi
delivering the keynote
speech to mark the official
launch of the US-Africa
Business summit in
Gaborone on 12 July 2023.
The summit is brought by
Corporate Council on Africa
in partnership with the
government of Botswana.
Image by Monirul Bhuiyan.
of Transport and Public Works’ budget allocation of P3.95
billion, which takes up the second largest share of the
proposed development budget. The budget allocation will
also cover upcoming road projects, especially in between
the villages in the tourist regions of northern Botswana,
as well as making access roads to the Gaborone Central
Business District.
Additionally, the budget is expected to cater for air
and rail infrastructure such as maintenance of airports,
improvement of surveillance of Botswana airspace,
upgrading of air navigation service’s infrastructure,
installation and improvement of airport’s security systems,
mandatory engines replacement, as well as improvement of
existing airport security and safety. Already, the country’s
busiest airport - situated in the tourist centre of Maun - has
seen major upgrades including a new tower, a technical
block and terminal building, according to Modipe
Nkwe, Head of Public Relations and Communications
at the Civil Aviation Authority of Botswana (CAAB).
Fortunately, Africa’s largest airline, Ethiopian Airlines,
will be introducing three direct flights each week from
Addis Ababa to Maun on their state-of-the-art Boeing
738-MAX aircraft as of June 2024. This will be a major
positive development for leisure and business tourism.
This is because Botswana’s tourist capital Maun and the
Okavango Delta nearby were previously only accessible via
direct flights to neighbouring countries. The new direct
route into Maun will make the Delta much more accessible
to international travellers without the inconvenience of
small connecting flights, and should therefore better serve
the growing MICE sector.
Other infrastructure developments in the aviation
sector include a new terminal building and a new control
tower at Kasane International Airport. Meanwhile, at the
Sir Seretse Khama International Airport close to the city of
Gaborone, the present terminal building will be expanded
in the short term to accommodate increased passenger
growth, says Nkwe. An Airport City will also take shape
nearby in the recently developed Land Use Master Plan
to transform the airport into a vibrant commercial centre
to cater for the projected increase in passenger traffic of
approximately 1.5 million in the year 2025. This will
become “a centre of urban activity which can translate
I N T R O D U C T I O N