Discussion/News about the future of Selfdrive in Botswana

[come-along.nl]

Interesting letter from Tiaan resident of Maun:

Congestion in the parks

Sir, - Congestion means various things to various people depending on how high up you are on the food chain, which means that congestion is a point of view and not a fact.

If you market your lodge as very exclusive and at 700 Euro per night per person (pnpp) you do not want to see a mobile operator's vehicle with 10 happy-go-lucky clients enjoying the same lion or scenery as your clients.

If you are an upmarket mobile safari operator marketing a very exclusive experience of the bush at 450 Euro pnpp you do not want to see another operator's vehicle with clients enjoying the same lion as your clients, especially not when they pay 150 Euro pnpp. What does the budget mobile safari operator charging 150 Euro thinks when he sees other operators or self-drives in the park? Cheers, mate. Nice seeing you. Congestion? What congestion?

The fact is the upmarket mobile safari operators are continually using the same tune of congestion to try and get rid of other users of the parks, be it budget operators or self- drives. One such operator actually admitted to me that he would prefer the whole park to himself.

These operators have continually lobbied the government through HATAB and other avenues to make the parks less congested without any regard for other players in the industry.

If the government some day decides to ban self-drives the gap in the economy will definitely not be filled by upmarket mobile operators. It would just be a loss of income to lodges, motels, camps and businesses in Maun and Kasane and we will have a handful of winners – the upmarket safari operators!

Expatriates who continually lobby for more rules and regulations and higher park feeds are making the safari industry less accessible to Batswana and then some of them still wonder by the BOGA organisation is more of a labour union than a guides association.

Congestion needs to be defined with When? Where? and to Whom?

It, anyway, does not affect the flora and fauna of the parks. I have not noticed any degradation in the parks other than the overgrazing of the Chobe river front – and that is not caused by congestion. The majority of vehicles off road belongs to safari operators and lodges anyway, and anybody contesting this fact does not get out the office that much.

We want self-drives! Maun wants the self-drives!

TIAAN THERON
Maun

[Gernot Eicker]

moin Tiaan,
ich fände es sehr schade, wenn man nicht mehr ganz privat in Botswana auf Safari gehen kann. Ich glaube, dass ich dann nie und nimmer so oft in Maun gewesen wäre, und Du hättest auch keinen Behälter für Deine Druckluftversorgung ))) (ex Unimog)
Gruss an Sabine
Gernot
Ende Oktober werde ich wieder kommen mit meinem Sohn Gerrit und Freunden von ihm ( evtl. 12 Paxe)