Community Based Turism: Luck will favour the prepared

Earl ier this week I had a conversation with my Community Based Tourism Students, they were worried if they chose the correct area of study and this being caused by what they see COVID- 19 doing to the tourism and hospitality industry. In our conversation we acknowledged that COVID- 19 has impacted many industries and indeed tourism is perhaps one of the hardest hit by this pandemic. I hope I do not sound like a broken record. The students and I also predicted in our conversation that tourism is also likely to be one of the last industries to come out of this ‘ mess’ once it is over. This beckoned the question ‘ What does it mean for community- based tourism?’ If and once the dust settles, what is going to happen? Studies in the past have highlighted that in Botswana, Community-Based Natural Resource Management ( CBNRM) is more prominent, and that while it has its successes and challenges in guiding

Community Based Tourism, Project Management remains one of the most lacked skills in managing associated communitybased tourism projects. Other business management skills and financial literacy skills too contribute to these lacked skills. While cultural heritage tourism is also lagging behind at this moment due to various restrictions, I assured my students that they did

not choose the wrong profession or area of study. Go kgoberega ga metsi ke go itsheka ga one. What is needed at the moment is to know that nobody is certain when the COVID- 19 crisis will blow over, but it is turning out to be clear that tourism will never be the same again because the tourist has changed. The crucial thing here is to prepare for the future. We can see that close- range travel seems to be the norm and might last for quite some time to come. Domestic, local and super- local travel seems to be the order of the day. This spells out an opportunity for community based tourism projects to grow and gain popularity in Botswana – the sky is only the beginning for viable projects in this space. Scholars have identified that challenges facing community based tourism projects in Botswana include community definition problems, multi- stakeholder participation, diversity and heterogeneity, deficiency in business acumen, lack of income distribution plans and reinvestment priorities and pass ive community participation. With these in mind. It is important to investigate how hard hit by COVID- 19 community based tourism is as compared to other forms of tourism in Botswana? Will it be back to ‘ its’ old patterns once the pandemic subsides? Are there any lessons to learn that can be used to prepare for the future? How better can this form of tourism be improved while it has slowed down and what measures or mechanisms can be put in place to ensure that once the industry gains momentum communities will know what they need to do. One can only imagine the assignments I am going to give this semester. Exciting times ahead!