Africa-Press – Lesotho. In order to reshape and improve Lesotho’s tourism regionally and internationally, the ministry of tourism and the Lesotho Tourism Development Corporation held a tourism visioning workshop, to develop the National Tourism Strategy.
Stakeholders were grouped into five focus areas, namely: infrastructure development, skills and capacity development, market and brand development, digital transformation, and quality enhancement.
With five different focus areas of discussions laid out, different groups outlined the main vision that tourism in Lesotho should focus on and identified challenges and opportunities of their respective focus areas.
They had to come up with solutions, actions and strategies that Lesotho should implement to resolve the given challenges. They were also tasked with providing solutions, actions and strategies the ministry of tourism and LTDC should implement to achieve the opportunities identified.
Some of the key issues across the focus areas included skills development and sharing in order to provide the best possible experience for the tourists.
One of the stakeholders, a businessman and restaurant owner, Paulo De Freitas, highlighted some of the challenges he has faced while attempting to enlist foreign experts to provide training for his employees.
“We can never enhance the skills because the labour department has made it impossible to bring in a short-term skills developer. I think we need to allow this to ease access for skills developers to come into the country,” assessed Paulo.
Other challenges identified include spatial planning in terms of infrastructure, licensure of shops and service providers, lack of digital infrastructure in some areas of attraction, visa access and issuance to tourists, and cybercrime.
To combat the challenges identified, some of the suggested solutions included the improvement of roads infrastructure for hard-to-reach areas, harmonisation of laws to access international markets, and decentralisation of government services in the legal aspect of businesses. Stakeholders also discussed customer care training of public officials that come in contact with tourists, such as police, and private sector training, to provide tourists with the best experience from the moment they get through our borders.
On digital transformation, Molapo Matela, the public relations officer at LTDC, spoke about the importance of information access by both tourists and the locals.
“We really need an educated or learned culture, where people are able to use digital platforms. Our population should be able to access information; it should start in the country and spread globally,” said Matela.
The LTDC acting CEO, Mamello Morojele, thanked the stakeholders for their contribution while highlighting the importance of this workshop, and how it benefits the country at large.
“This workshop marked a pivotal journey towards reshaping and revitalising tourism in Lesotho. We were gathered here with a shared vision, repositioning Lesotho as a must-visit and sustainable destination within the Southern Africa region and beyond.
“Today, we have critically assessed the current state of our tourism sector through the draft of situational analysis. We have acknowledged our strengths and identified our challenges. We have also seen how we need to facilitate tourism development, in order to spread tourism for general societal well-being.”
For More News And Analysis About Lesotho Follow Africa-Press
