the role of tourism in natural resource management in the okavango ...

The tourism sector in the Okavango Delta is generally considered to be dominated
by expatriates, particularly with regards to management positions. According to
Mbaiwa (2002), a survey of 30 hotels, lodges and safari camps in the Okavango
Delta in 2001 revealed that a total of 923 people were formally employed by these
facilities. When assessing the citizenship of these workers, without necessarily
categorizing them according to their positions, Mbaiwa (2002) revealed that 866 (94
percent) of the 923 workers were Botswana citizens, while only 57 (6 percent) were
expatriates. The majority (37 or 65 percent) of the 57 expatriates came from South
Africa or Zimbabwe.
However, even though there were far more citizen workers employed in the tourism
industry in the Okavango Delta, expatriates tend to hold more meaningful jobs than
the local employees. For example, most tourism facility management positions are
held by expatriates, as well as kitchen management and professional guiding
positions. Most citizen employees hold many of the more basic, and lower paying,
jobs such as cleaners, waitrons and kitchen staff, etc.
It is difficult to determine the total employment in the tourism sector in Botswana, as
different researchers and reports give conflicting figures. For example, the Botswana
Tourism Development Programme (BTDP) (1999) states that in 1997 the total
number of jobs generated by the wildlife and tourism sector was 9900, which was
approximately 4.5 percent of the total employment in Botswana, a figure also quoted
by Hotel and Tourism Association of Botswana (HATAB) (2001). The Bank of
Botswana (1999) stated that this was an underestimate and placed the figure at 10
015 people. HATAB also noted that tourism employment in Botswana had increased
from 2630 in 1988 to 9990 in 1998, which represents a 26.6 percent increase over
the ten-year period. The Department of Tourism (DOT) (2000) noted that direct
employment in core tourism-related activities amounted to 8536 persons in 1998 or
3.8 percent of the total number of paid employees in Botswana. However, the DOT
also stated that 8536 was a conservative estimate as staff employed by tourist
shops, foreign exchange bureaus and other tourist-related services provided
through, or embedded in, other sectors (e.g., retailing, banking, personal services,
etc.) were not considered.
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