Research

The Department of Tourism and Hospitality Management is committed to turning the University of Botswana into a research intensive tertiary educational institution over the next two planning periods. In doing so, the Department has identified three priority areas for research: Culture, arts and society; Economic diversification and entrepreneurship; and Social and political development. In addition sustainable development and tourism and hospitality entrepreneurship (and policy) represent issues that cut across all the three research themes.

The Department’s Strategic Goals for Research are to: To undertake high quality and relevant research; integrate research into teaching; become a regional centre of excellence in tourism and hospitality research; and foster international collaborative research.

Linkages

The Department has established linkages with:

• International Tourism Research Centre
• Hospitality and Tourism Association of Botswana
• North-South Links
• 3A Step
• Chinese Universities

These linkages are meant to stimulate staff and student exchange programmes as well as collaborative research.

Academic Programme

The Department offers a Bachelor of Business Administration Degree in Tourism and Hospitality Management. In line with the University’s quest to become an academic centre of excellence, and the Department of Tourism and Hospitality Management’s, vision to become the premier tourism and hospitality management school in Africa and the world, the Department embarked on amendments to the BBA programme. These amendments were necessitated by two events – namely the external review of the BBA tourism and hospitality in 2008 and the Botswana Tourism Board (BTB) (now BTO) Training needs analysis of Botswana’s tourism industry. These two developments make it imperative that the BBA (Tourism and Hospitality Management) programme be reviewed in order to align it to the current and future needs of Botswana while at the same time making the programme internationally competitive.