Botswana’s Department of Tourism is accepting applications to license tourism accommodation on farms as it looks to develop agro-tourism, the department’s Taelo Moncho told a recent stakeholder meeting in Maun.

Accommodation products that can be licensed include guest houses, campsites, bed and breakfast offerings, backpackers and tented camps. Moncho said only legally licensed farms would be allowed to undertake agro-tourism, adding that farms were licensed to use only 15% of the farm’s entire area for agro tourism. 

“For one to operate tourism facility, the farm must be working. When the farm ceases to operate, the licence for a tourism facility also ceases,” said Moncho.

He said it presented an opportunity for farmers in Botswana to develop their farms and generate money from tourism.