17 Jul 2018

Botswana Tourism Organisation (BTO) has diversified this year’s annual Makgadikgadi Epic by giving participants an opportunity to tour tourist destinations prior to the event.

BTO marketing manager, Thabang Segaetsho explained that they had arranged for participants to tour and spend a night at  tourist destinations in the Chobe in order to get a glimpse of more areas of tourism other than the host area, Sowa.

Such an arrangement, he said was also intended to enhance marketing strategies in regard to the tourists’ destinations the country had to offer and added that there were some places, which required robust marketing for them to attract tourists.

Furthermore, he stated that this year’s event, which had skydiving demonstrations and tandem jumps as their main activities had seen skydivers from places such as the United States of America, Belgium, Germany, Zambia and Zimbabwe gracing the event.

This, he said gave them ample opportunity to spread their wings in terms of marketing the country further so that even after the event many could still come back for a visit.

In terms of local business empowerment, Segaetsho said they had 15 stalls for the SMME’s to offer and market their services and products.

He added eight were strictly reserved for poverty eradication beneficiaries and youth while the remaining were set aside for local communities.

He said for transparency reasons, they were advertised in the surrounding villages for interested persons to try their luck.

In regard to the overall impression of the event, he said Batswana had attended the epic in large numbers. ENDS