Not only are Indians and Chinese being kicked out of Botswana, they are also being denied visas to enter the country as tourists. This revelation is contained in a Private Sector Development Programme (PSDP) report that analyses Botswana’s tourism value chain. As part of the leg work, the consultants interviewed tourist operators in both Gaborone and Kasane and they write in the report: “Over half the Kasane sample, and a third of the Gaborone sample, indicated that they were difficulties with tourist visas, including that they were hard and time consuming to obtain, expensive, that they could not be obtained at the point of entry, and that sometimes they were denied to people who had booked trips. Specifically it was noted that Indian and Chinese visitors had been denied visas.” The respondents don’t go as far as to state reasons for which such visas are denied. The revelation about the denial of visas will be dumbfounding for at least three reasons. Firstly, with diamonds being mined out, Botswana wants to diversify its economic base to other sectors, tourism being one of them. Secondly, while tourism has shown great potential, the country doesn’t make as much money from it. In one…
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