The Director of Miss Botswana, Benjamin Raletsatsi intimated during the Miss Botswana 2024 top 30 contestants media reveal that they intend to host Miss World 2026 after their right to host the 2024 pageant was revoked.
Raletsatsi stated that they had initially been given the green light by Miss World to host the pageant next year but the permission was revoked after they failed to respond in time. “Miss World had permitted us to host Miss World 2024 and in March, we came back with the letter to Botswana. In this letter, we were given six months to respond to it if we will host or not but the permission expired in August as we had not responded by then,” he said. Raletsatsi revealed that they realised they were not ready to host the 2024 pageant.
“There are many reasons which made us miss out on this, some being that it is a big financial event. And in our talks with Miss World, we realised that we had a bare minimum of $10 million. This was too short notice hence we are giving ourselves time,” Raletsatsi said.
He, however, stated that they will not allow the revoked permission to dampen their spirit as they will continue with their ambitious push for the right to host in 2026.
“We were able to host the reigning Miss World here in Botswana to crown our queen Lesego Chombo and this goes to prove our intention as a brand to host Miss World 2026,” he confidently said.
Because of their recently launched strategy (3+1 Miss World Strategy), Raletsatsi reckons that they would be considered to host once more.
“The 3+1 strategy is to say the next three years which is 2023, 2024, and 2025 we want to sell a story of Botswana. And because of this, in 2026 in which we have boldly announced [strategy] we are hosting Miss World in Botswana because we deserve it,” the director said.
