Africa-Press – Botswana. With the case for mass tourism ably demonstrated by several example countries, we turn to Botswana’s profound iniquity – and economic short-sightedness – of boasting about attracting wealthy visitors while paying the frontline workers who deliver the product poverty wages.
Special Correspondent
At last week’s Hospitality and Tourism Association of Botswana (HATAB) annual conference in Maun, there was much talk of the success of Botswana’s “high-value, low-volume” tourism model. Policymakers, investors and operators congratulated themselves on Botswana’s ability to attract wealthy tourists while preserving our fragile ecosystems.
But amid all the optimism, one glaring issue remained largely invisible: the workers who make this celebrated industry possible are earning poverty wages.
Tourism may be Botswana’s pride but it hides a deeply uncomfortable truth. While luxury lodges, safari operators and tourism investors profit handsomely, the majority of tourism workers — the guides, the trackers, the chefs, the cleaners and the waiters — remain trapped in cycles of low pay, insecurity, and hardship.
The economic injustice baked into Botswana’s current tourism model must now be confronted, if we are serious about sustainability, fairness, and the future of this critical sector.
When labour is underpaid…
Tourism is fundamentally a service industry. Visitors do not travel thousands of miles for bricks and mortar but come for experiences, stories, hospitality and human connection. It is the warmth of the welcome, the sharp eye of the guide, the skill of the tracker, the creativity of the chef, and the diligence of the housekeeper that transform a safari into a memory of a lifetime.
In tourism, labour is not just part of the product — it is the product. Modern economic thinking, including Service-Dominant Logic, underlines this truth: value is co-created between customers and service providers. When labour is underpaid, it is not only a human rights issue — it is an attack on the quality and competitiveness of the entire industry.
The numbers are startling. Botswana’s tourism GDP is valued at P23.5 billion. It directly employs around 43,000 workers. This means each worker, on average, generates about P550,000 in tourism GDP per year. Yet the typical tourism worker — guide, housekeeper, chef — earns a monthly wage of around P5,500. (‘Paylab’ cite average wages in the sector being from P2,826 to P8,898 pm) translating to just P66,000 per year. In other words, the average tourism worker receives only 12 percent of the revenue they help generate. The rest — a staggering 88 percent — flows to operators, overheads, foreign investors, marketing and capital returns.
A precondition
At the same time, it is widely accepted that a basic living wage in Botswana is around P4,000 per month. This is the minimum required to afford modest but decent living standards — food, shelter, transport, education, and healthcare. Yet many tourism workers are paid far below this threshold and are condemned to daily struggles while Botswana markets its tourism product as a triumph of conservation and prosperity.
The “high-value, low-volume” model has doubtless brought real benefits to Botswana. It has contained the environmental impact normally associated with tourism, brought global recognition for conservation efforts, and resulted in higher per capita tourist spending. But high value for the country must not mean low value for the citizen. It is profoundly iniquitous – and economically short-sighted – to boast about attracting wealthy visitors while simultaneously paying the frontline workers who deliver the product poverty wages.
We hereby propose simple but transformative ideas. The first is to make the living wage a precondition for all tourism operating permits and concessions. Before any lodge, safari operator, mobile camp, or tour company receives or renews a licence, they must provide evidence that all employees are paid at least the basic living wage of P4,000 per month. No loopholes, tokens or so-called corporate social responsibility, and certainly no exploitation disguised as “community upliftment.”
Shared prosperity
If an operator cannot afford to pay fair wages, they cannot afford to operate. This would send a clear signal to the world: Botswana’s tourism industry stands not just for pristine landscapes and rare wildlife but also for dignity, fairness, and shared prosperity. It would set Botswana apart in an increasingly competitive global market where ethical tourism practices matter more and more to discerning travellers. And most importantly, it would deliver justice to the thousands of Batswana whose work breathes life into this critical sector.
The second idea, which needs more justification, is to move into low-value, high-volume tourism where demonstrably most of the tourist dollars stay inside the country, are better dispersed and involve more local content. International evidence increasingly supports a shift towards carefully managed low-value, high-volume (LVHV) tourism.
According to the UNWTO’s Tourism and Jobs: A Global Analysis (2019), mass tourism generates 50-70% more direct employment per dollar spent compared to luxury tourism. The World Bank’s 2018 report, The Economics of Tourism for Sustainable Growth, also notes that mass-market tourism delivers higher social returns as income flows more widely into transport, small business services, food supply chains, and informal sector vendors.
Democratic tourism
Countries like Thailand, Morocco and Costa Rica demonstrate that LVHV tourism can be robust and equitable when properly regulated. Thailand’s tourism industry, for example, contributed over 20% of GDP pre-COVID, with a workforce of nearly 6 million — largely supported by volume-driven tourism rather than luxury exclusivity. Similarly, Morocco’s focus on increasing tourist arrivals (not only spending per visitor) helped halve rural poverty rates between 2000 and 2015 (World Bank, 2019).
Mass tourism, when well-managed, actually builds greater political support for conservation because more citizens depend on nature-based jobs. Botswana’s exclusive model, by contrast, concentrates revenue among a few operators and foreign owners, limits job creation, and increases economic vulnerability to external shocks. An updated model could involve volume growth with quality control, ensuring wider economic participation without compromising ecological sustainability. The global trend is clear: countries that democratise tourism participation achieve greater social and economic dividends than those that restrict it to elites.
Human dignity
Tourism must be more than just a revenue stream or a branding exercise. It must be a real engine of national development and human dignity. Botswana has been rightly praised for protecting its wilderness and wildlife and must now show the same courage in protecting its workers. The question we must ask, after the applause fades from the HATAB conference, is simple: High value for whom?
Unless tourism’s human foundations are strengthened through fair wages and decent work, the industry’s future will be as fragile as the ecosystems we claim to defend. If this UDC government is serious about building a more equitable and inclusive society, then it needs to do the right thing. It is time to build an industry that truly benefits all — from the lodge owner to the kitchen porter, from the investor to the guide. Fair pay for fair work. That is the future of sustainable tourism in Botswana.
Source: Botswana Gazette
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