15 July 2023
Sello Motseta
The Botswana Tourism Organisation (BTO) which promotes best practice management systems across all tourism industry sectors to facilitate environmentally sustainable tourism development in Botswana has partnered with Suspicious Antwerp, to bolster tourist arrivals in Botswana post COVID-19.
Established by an Act of Parliament in 2004, it is mandated to market Botswana as a premier tourist destination of choice by enhancing value addition and diversifying the tourism product. The unique collaborative effort with the lifestyle street wear brand from Antwerp that sells unisex clothing worldwide through its own web shop is expected to build tourist numbers.
“We are a clothing brand and we sell lifestyles as well. Every two weeks a collection is released and during August we will focus on Botswana by talking about your elephants, Okavango Delta and Salt Pans,” said Gillian Morreel, a 24 year old content developer for Suspicious Antwerp.
She said, “Botswana is a country that everyone talks about but does not know.”
A visitor to this country for the fourth time she said Suspicious Antwerp targets the Z Generation. These are people who are between the ages of 16 – 25 years who like to travel and discover the world.
Morreel said the partnership with BTO is built out of Suspicious Antwerp’s success in reaching audiences through its social media platforms on Tik Tok, Instagram and Twitter with a huge following in Europe and American markets, where Botswana is currently trying to build tourist arrivals.
“We work together with influencers and talents,” said Morreel.
The company has 335,000 followers on instagram, 150,000 on Tik tok and a significant 300,000 followers on Instagram. It hopes these numbers coupled with those of popular skydivers it has invited to enjoy Makgakgadi Epic, will help bolster the public profile of Botswana’s tourist arrivals.
According to Statistics Botswana, in its first quarterly report of 2022 there were 175,699 non citizen tourist arrivals with 90.1% international visitors. The bulk of these visitors were from the SADC region. With neighbouring South Africa contributed 35.8%, Zimbabwe 27.7% and Zambia 18.2%.
A majority of these visitors were middle aged between 35-44 years representing a significant 34.6% of tourist arrivals. The United States contributed 29.5% of overseas visitors followed by Germany 20.4% and the United Kingdom 17.9%.
Holiday visitors comprised 65.0% of visitors and business visitors accounted for 13.3% of tourist arrivals.
The Botswana Tourist Organization(BTO) hopes to build on these numbers by successfully leveraging its relationship with global partner Suspicious Antwerp.
“We want to target young market and the world not just for leisure but events also. We want to drive numbers by targeting younger people and middle aged market to come to Botswana,” said Keitumetse Stekang, Chief Executive Officer(CEO) of the Botswana Tourism Organization(BTO).
She said, “These influencers we are working with are followed by lot of people and we invited them to event to attract numbers for Makgadikgadi Epic.”
Setland revealed that international skydivers visiting Botswana, do not just want to dive but want to enjoy Botswana’s unique tourism product.
She insisted that an aggressive marketing campaign was necessary to rebuild tourist arrivals to the country in the post-COVID period with forecasts showing arrivals would have fully recovered by 2025.
Botswana is now attracting 60% of tourist arrivals it usually generates.
Suspicious Antwerp was founded in 2017 by Philipe Libert and Frederik Janssens as part of a project during their studies at the University of Antwerp and the brand boasts openly about its very bold ambition to ensure that clients never live a boring day.
They strive to disrupt and brave the unknown through the means of its unique clothing and the lifestyle that comes with it. Antwerp has been known as the diamond capital of the world for several centuries, a title that hasn't been easily earned, with the diamond trade in the port starting nearly 500 years ago when the first rough stones were brought over from India.
