The Prime Minister, Dr Moeketsi Majoro says tourism is Lesotho’s development priority.
This, he said on Wednesday in his keynote address during the Special Virtual Seminar on the revival of Lesotho’s tourism sector. The webinar attracted local and international investors particularly in hospitality and other sectors.
Dr Majoro said tourism is one of the four major sectors identified in the National Strategic Development Plan (NSDP).
He said tourism is what everybody says it is, thus ‘Lesotho has so much potential in developing this sector, noting however that tourism contribution to Lesotho’s national output is poor.
He noted that tourism is a figment of imagination, an asset kept secret by a few people who know about it and an asset that people tell each other about but have not explored its potential.
The Prime Minister noted that Lesotho has assets to support tourism, citing a prestigious landscape, prestigious and unique biodiversity, and endemic flora, saying Lesotho is a grassland that has a rich biodiversity.
Furthermore, Dr Majoro said Lesotho is a water tour of Southern Africa, saying white water flows down the slopes of Lesotho’s mountains.
‘Senqu River (Orange River) originates from the eastern mountains of Mokhotlong and flows into the Atlantic ocean and four percent of it is in Lesotho and that four percent contributes 40 percent of water into the Atlantic ocean,” he said adding that Lesotho is over 35,000 square metres and 70 percent is rangelands and those rangelands host wetlands that feed the 40 percent that goes into the Senqu River.
The Prime Minister said Lesotho’s assets are immense and spectacular, expressing hope that the webinar will inject a seed among local and international investors to come together to develop the untapped tourism potential in Lesotho.
He said if people come to Lesotho, there is always not much to want to come back for, commenting that product development has been a problem for a long time though the sites are spectacular but are not animated adequately to lure people to emerge themselves in experience to want to come back.
‘Poor product development is a problem, however, there is a sprinkle of passionate tourism product developers in the country through sum to the investment has not been sufficient to develop a sought after tourism product’, he lamented.
Additionally, Dr Majoro said with God’s creations and cultural heritages in the country, all must be packaged for international investors who want to come back or want to recommend to others.
He said there has been inadequate expertise in this sector and inadequate financial capital to support the sector however saying with the definition of world programme, they have laid foundations for local investors to address this problem thus to work in joint ventures or otherwise with international investors.
He further noted that local investors can together create tourism asset-based driven by the private sector which Lesotho has never seen before, saying this can be done through repackaging on powerful cultural heritages.
Meanwhile, giving details on European Union (EU) contributions to Lesotho during the EU Day celebration on Monday, the EU Ambassador to Lesotho, Dr Christian Manahl promised that though there is currently no programme that supports tourism, it will be considered in future.
He said the EU is partnering with Lesotho Government through local authorities with the aim to manage and protect wetlands in order to preserve Lesotho’s water carrying capacity.
The webinar was meant to analyze the current challenges, opportunities and priority reforms to revive and revitalise the country’s tourism and hospitality sector.
Again, it will explore Lesotho’s local, regional and international competitiveness to attract tourists and investments in light of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Source: LENA 13/05/2021