Chobe women make their mark in tourism’s ‘Great Reset’

KASANE – A philosophy developed and promoted by the leadership of Chobe Holdings in the last decade has paved the way for women breaking the ceiling in tourism, moving beyond the laundry room, restaurants and housekeeping, to being guides in the wild and occupying prominent positions in the board room.

Chobe Holdings is one of the country’s largest and oldest tourism groups with world-renowned camps and assets in the northwest tourism heartland which includes the Okavango Delta and Tsodilo Hills, the country’s two World Heritage Sites.

For women, their participation in the tourism industry has been and to some extent continues to be concentrated in the travel agencies and hospitality sector. Areas such as safari guiding and executive management continue to be male dominated, even though in the latter, the industry has been able to move away from the dominance of expatriates, to more citizen empowerment.

For Chobe Holdings is a 40-year old Botswana Stock Exchange-listed company credited with realising the tourism potential of the northwest and transforming the area from predominantly hunting activities to a photographic, non-consumptive industry. For Chobe Holdings, the empowerment of women is part of a mission to unlock the human potential of tourism in the country.

The group, which includes well-known subsidiaries Desert & Delta Safaris as well as Ker and Downey, has over the years handheld its female employees to realise their ambitions in tourism, sponsoring their studies, accommodating their unique needs such as those around working in remote wilderness camps and opening up room for them in whatever responsibilities and positions they aspire for.

Elizabeth Taylor, the legendary Hollywood actress, tied the knot to Richard Burton in 1975 at Chobe Holdings’ Chobe Game Lodge, then the country’s first five star safari lodge, located in the Chobe National Park. Taylor’s website describes the late actress as earning a name for herself by portraying “legendary female characters who embodied strength, integrity, and unapologetic femininity”.

These attributes have echoed down the years in the philosophy adopted by Chobe Holdings and today,18-years after employing its first female guide, the group is world-renowned for its “Chobe Angels” a 19-person all-female team of guides at Chobe Game Lodge who lead tourists on game drives and boat cruises in the iconic Chobe National Park.

As at the last count, of the 756 staff employed by Chobe Holdings and its subsidiaries, 50.3% are women, an industry milestone few other competitors are close to achieving. At Chobe Game Lodge, women comprise 61% of the 125 staff members and while women are out in the field and the water, men can be seen waiting tables and serving in the restaurants.

“Women empowerment did not start as us establishing a policy on it, but rather a culture of equality in the workplace so when the DDS CARES Philology was born, everything fell in to play,” explains Chobe Holdings Group Head of Human Resources, Kelly Ledimo.

C – Career & Community Development

A – Advanced Healthy Care

R – Responsibility to Our Environment

E – Equality in the Workplace

S – Spirituality

“We believed that there were positions well-known to be dominated by men and we wanted to bring women in, such as in guiding at the Chobe Game Lodge.

“We are doing that in all our properties not just in guiding but also, for example, at our camps where we have equal numbers of males and females in each of the four-person management teams.”

The male dominated niches in tourism evolved that way for a reason. Careers such as guiding are demanding, requiring staff to spend months away from family out in the remote wilderness in close proximity to wild animals and far from modern conveniences.

Guiding requires staff to not only operate the bulky safari vehicles in tortuous and often treacherous conditions, but also be ready to conduct emergency repairs such as wheel changes, out in the wilderness, while carrying tourists and at the same time providing them with in-depth knowledge about the flora and fauna they are surrounded by.

In fact, guides have to be walking encyclopaedias of flora and fauna, able to identify animals on the spot, their unique calls, spoor, behaviours and warning signs while operating heavy, four-wheel drives or boats and answering tourists’ questions knowledgeably.

“Guiding is the core of tourism,” explains independent tourism coach and mentor, Tshepiso Mganga.

“Tourists come to experience a product and guiding is where that experience comes from.

“Women can do that and they are doing it.

“In fact, women can do anything in tourism.”

The Chobe Angels, who have been featured in major publications across the world, report that when the shift began towards women empowerment, some male guides from rival groups would be less than helpful out in the field.

“If you were stuck or had a problem, some would say, ‘you guys said you are able, so do it for yourself,” recalls a guide at Chobe Game Lodge.

Some tourists, as well, were initially apprehensive when finding out that their guide into the unpredictable wilderness would be a woman. What will the woman do if a lion leaps into the vehicle or if we get stuck while surrounded by buffaloes, they would ask.

In as much as the group opened up doors for women, they have had to earn their way into the industry and as they demonstrated their passion and competence, the Chobe Angels not only gained the trust of clients, but with the growing publicity, became an international showpiece for arrivals.

Beyond providing opportunities for women, their advancement in the group has made a tangible difference to the safari experience as reported by tourists and noted in feedback to Chobe Holdings.

“I think women have an exceptional eye for details and when details matter in the high-end luxury travel sector then the quality of the experience will always be better” says Ledimo

The caring touch is evident in the warm relationships tourists develop with their guides during even the briefest of stays in the Game Lodge or the camps in the Delta. During a short flight stop at Xugana Island Lodge in the northern reaches of the Delta last week, Mmegi observed an American couple and their daughters, boarding their flight in tears as they waved goodbye to their guide.

Out in the field, the Chobe Angels also have a reputation for being sticklers to the rules in the Chobe National Park, an area of high safari vehicle traffic where self-drive tourists and others frequently bend the rules by going off-road and encroaching into wild animals’ safe zones. The Angels are reportedly viewed by the self-drive tourists as a sort of law who could potentially alert the park authorities about “cowboy” activity in the ecologically sensitive area.

Today, as the industry reopens after the pandemic paralysis, Chobe Game Lodge is a hive of activity with tourists who had deferred their bookings, are well settled in and eager to go out on game drives and boat cruises with the Chobe Angels.

Chobe Holdings’ philosophy has had far reaching impact beyond the group. For years, young Batswana women who trained to enter the tourism industry would either have to limit their aspirations to the traditional positions available to them, or dare to dream but ultimately have difficulties securing opportunities in the male dominated careers.

Across the group today, women tell the remarkably similar stories about how they entered the traditional, elementary tourism roles and were helped by the group to rise into more elevated male dominated roles.

“My journey started in 2005 as curio shop assistant then I worked myself up to guest relations officer before leaving to study,” says Ruth Simalumba, Chobe Game Lodge’s lodge services manager.

“After getting my degree, I worked in a few other places, but they were not as fulfilling as Chobe and I returned.

“The general manager saw my potential and encouraged me to move higher and today my role is broad, looking after all departments from housekeeping to the guest relations office.

“Essentially, I have to make sure that by the time people leave the door, they are happy and their expectations met.”

Shiyani Tsietso started in the group in 2004 working in the restaurant. Today, she is Chobe Game Lodge’s human resources manager.

“I became food and beverages manager from 2004 to 2007, then moved to human resources officer for sometime.

“I was qualified in hotel and tourism, but the general manager saw that potential in me and after in-house experience, in 2015 I decided that I should get a formal qualification and approached my manager who supported me in that.

“I enrolled at the then BOCODOL and did a degree in human resources and industrial relations which I completed in 2018.

“This role has also helped personally because I am able to work from 8am to 5pm rather than the restaurant hours I used to work.”

For women in the camps or in roles that require extraordinary hours, finding the right work balance is key and an important part of this is supportive partners or families. Since joining Chobe Holdings in 2007 in laundry and housekeeping, Maggie Makgetho has worked out in the group’s camps in the Delta.

Today she is the chef at Camp Okavango, a remote, luxury site which is not only Chobe Holdings’ oldest camp but whose activities are exclusively water-based.

“I joined the group when my son was in Standard 7 and now he is 26 years old, studying agriculture.

“My parents helped me bring him up in my absence and they have been very helpful.

“The company also takes very good care of us as women and provides many programmes including health care and the mobile clinics that come through here.

“I intend to continue working in the camps until I retire back to my village,” she says.

The Group Head of Human resources, Ledimo, who herself first joined as a radio operator, explains that Chobe Holdings’ empowerment programmes are not limited to the group. Desert & Delta Safaris runs a programme at Botswana Accountancy College (BAC) called Leaders for the Future where it sponsors the studies of student from the communities it operates in or from a school it has adopted. The sponsorship runs over the three and half years at the BAC and includes internship at one of the group’s camps. The student is thereafter hired for two years within DDS camps and Lodges, being drafted into management.

“In the six years of running our BAC sponsorship programme, four out of the six students we have supported have been females and they have succeeded.”

Tourism’s reset after the pandemic has led to more questions about what the industry is doing about opening doors for women, questions that Chobe Holdings believes it is answering. At a broader industry level, however, industry watchers believe more can be done.

Tourism coach and mentor, Mganga, who has 14 years’ experience in the industry, believes tourism’s extensive value chain provides more room for women to make their mark.

In the wake of the pandemic, Mganga established a tourism entrepreneurship development programme and this year, has partnered with CEDA who have sponsored 13 participants in training around branding, marketing, insurance, legal, managing ventures in remote areas, back of house operations and others.

“Tourism is an industry that is so simple and yet so complex.

“It’s one that you really need to understand how it works and once you do, it can be easy to fly through the value chain.

“We are seeing the trend of more women guides, but also others who started as travel agents now going into accommodation.

“The idea is that we should not find ourselves limited to certain positions but rather look at the bigger picture and the entire value chain for opportunities.”

The reset in tourism has provided an opportunity for the various players to reshape the industry and open more doors for women, over and above the traditional roles they have occupied. For the young women interested in venturing into the industry, the opportunities should extend beyond reservations and laundry rooms, to the game drives, board rooms and equity positions.