By Seleoe Nonyane
The Alliance Group Investment Holding Company (Alliance Insurance) Limited and the Lesotho Tourism Development Corporation (LTDC) have launched a joint promotion called ‘Ke Lapeng’ to encourage local tourism.
Under the three-year partnership, the two organisations will place landmarks across the country to it easier for Basotho to recognise places of interest that they can visit.
The first land mark was launched this week at Qiloane in Maseru.
The first phase of the initiative will also cover ‘Maletsunyane Falls, Thabana-Li-‘Mele, Thabana-Ntlenyana, Qiloane, Thaba-Bosiu, Afri Ski and Morifi.
The project is in line with LTDC’s mandate to ensure that Basotho first travel around their country before exploring the world.
The two organisations believe that the landmarks are a good investment opportunity that will help grow the economy of the country as visitors to these places will pay an entrance fee.
Speaking at the launch, Alliance Insurance’s head of group marketing and communications ‘Makeabetsoe Mabaleha said when people take pictures and post them on their social media handles, this encourages others to visit the landmarks.
Mabaleha indicated that they also expected to attract international tourists.
For his part, the principal chief of Thaba-Bosiu Khoabane Letsie Theko, welcomed the promotion and hailed the initiative as the right step to promote Lesotho to the world.
Chief Khoabane however expressed concern with the ‘meagre’ budget that is always allocated to the tourism sector.
He said that he was not convinced that the government is serious about the growth of tourism in the country.
Chief Khoabane urged the government to rethink its strategy of building the industry.
“The biggest challenge is infrastructure. I believe that roads need to be constructed to make these tourist attraction sites easily accessible.
“I wish the current minister of tourism could convince parliament and cabinet that it is about time we yielded and grew our tourism in triumph; this will help Lesotho’s economy enormously,” he pointed out.
More investment in tourism would also help create jobs for Basotho, he added.
