Berea, Jan. 15 —
Kome Tourism Development Group said they have recorded an increase of tourists visiting the Caves during the festive season, with locals topping their statistics.
This was revealed by Kome Chairperson, Mr. Kabelo Kome during an interview with the Agency on Thursday, where he highlighted that they saw a surge in local tourists with numbers increasing to 191.
Mr. Kome highlighted that they recorded 89 tourists from various countries within the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) whereby mostly South Africans were in dominance, while internationals made only 49.
He further said what impressed them most during that time was to welcome a total of 34 students from various institutions of higher learning pursuing their research work at the caves.
However, Mr. Kome said out of such recorded numbers of tourists, this year they did not receive any bookings of tourists who want to spend a night at the caves, but most were just day visitors.
Mr. Kome said this year they want to bring some vibe to Kome Caves by establishing recreational activities such as reviving Kome Beer Festival which was normally held around November.
“Tourism is a pillar of life for people around the caves and it does not have to be seasonal, hence we want to diversify our activities in order to keep tourists longer,” he explained.
On the other hand, he said plans are in the pipeline to invite ideas from students in all tertiary schools running tourism courses to share and bring up some fresh ideas on how they can develop the place.
He stressed that many people are willing to make a visit to the caves, but lack of accessibility to the place is a main challenge, adding that they are faced with challenge of small portion of road which need to be gravelled properly in order to enable smooth drive for every road user.
Tourism has been earmarked as one of the key pillars that can transform the country’s economy, as according to the Lesotho Review and Tourism Employment Survey (2014), the tourism sector is estimated to have supported over 20,000 jobs in 2013, with 4,737 people estimated to be employed directly by the tourism industry.
Meanwhile, the National Strategic Development Plan II of 2018-19, 2022-23 as extended, highlighted that on Tourism attraction sites, Lesotho offers a unique tourism experience not available in commercialized countries. Management of attraction sites must be strengthened to better benefit surrounding communities.
Ends/RM/tl
