Africa-Press – Botswana. Tourism players have been implored to adopt digital technologies to access new markets and align their operations with developing trends in the market.
Discussing the theme: leveraging digital technologies to build a customer focused tourism industry at the recent HATAB conference, Business Botswana chief executive officer, Mr Norman Moleele said the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the need for digital transformation and as such their competitive edge depended on how digitally agile they were.
Today, he said, both large and small tourism enterprises had to leverage on technologies as modern tourists demanded seamless, digital first experiences from trip planning to post visit reviews.
Mr Moleele said digital technologies were good for global competitiveness. He added that to compete regionally and globally, Botswana must embrace smart tourism tools that aligned with international standards.
He said technology promoted operational efficiency as it reduced overheads and enhanced agility, enabling businesses to optimise booking, staffing, marketing and logistics.
“As Business Botswana, we are committed to helping HATAB members identify the right tools for their business model and training for effective use,” he said.
Furthermore, Mr Moleele pointed out that there was a range of tools available from booking engines to customer engagement platforms.
Importantly, he noted, Botswana had a growing base of tech start-ups and entrepreneurs who could partner with tourism players to localise and contextualise the tools.
Mr Moleele said technology affected every part of the tourism value chain, from planning, experience to post visit feedback, adding that digitally enabled businesses could improve service delivery, build stronger customer relationship and enhance brand visibility.
He also appreciated that some local businesses were demonstrating resilience through innovation citing that some have developed packages such as mokoro rides, cultural lunches and craft tours which were now booked online via partnerships with agents and other means.
However, we are seeing trend where some tourism facilities are not supporting local service providers with some centralizing their services outside the country, he said.
For local empowerment and sustainability, Mr Moleele said facilities must collaborate with local small and medium businesses and integrate them into the tourism value chain.
With unemployment being a major challenge, he emphasised that the sector must take a deliberate stance to develop and grow local enterprises so that they could also participate in improving the living standards of Batswana. Mr Moleele reaffirmed Business Botswana’s commitment to supporting the digital transformation of tourism through advocacy, capacity building and collaboration.
“I also urge conference delegates to propose solutions on how to grow the sector and leverage digitisation” he added.
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