Govt digitalises tourism sector

The Ministry of Environment, Natural Resources Conservation and Tourism has launched the Tourism Licensing and Information System (TOLIS), an online tourism service which will enhance ease of doing business in the tourism industry.

Launching the system in Maun recently,Environment, Natural Resources Conservation and Tourism Minister Philda Kereng said the development of the system is one of the means to reach the desired end of a conducive environment for tourism growth. Kereng added that the introduction of the system is also another effort to improve the Ministry’s efficiency, accountability, reliability, transparency and customer reach-ability. 

According to the Minister, TOLIS is an end to end modernization of the tourism licensing process which her ministry has introduced to establish a platform for informed decision making as well as provide innovative solutions to enhance ease of doing business. The system avails an online services platform to allow online payment services and other avenues for delivery of departmental services such as SMSs. It also enhances centralized monitoring of the tourism industry thereby ensuring compliance.

The system is accessible to both the internal and external customers of the tourism industry through online services. It is however indicated that its only operators who hold licenses issued through the system who will be able to access the outlined services. The operators have therefore been urged to re-register through the system as early as possible.

“Through TOLIS, an operator or investor is able to fulfil all the tourism statutory requirements such as applying for a Tourist Enterprise Licence online, pay annual licence fees, remit bed/training levy they would have collected from every paying guest on monthly basis to government and submit tourism statistics in the comfort of their homes or offices without having to travel to any of the tourism offices,” the minister highlighted.

She stressed that the system therefore provides convenience and cuts on unnecessary costs for tourism operations.

“TOLIS also provides a platform for calculation of how much bed levy is to be remitted for a given month. The system is integrated with government SMS gateway and it therefore generates SMS based notifications on the date of expiry of tourist licence where applicable and alerts the operator on due dates for licence fee payment and bed levy remittance promoting adherence to legislation and avoidance of penalties,” she further explained.

In terms of performance management for Tourism Licensing officers, the Minister said the system provides work flow event alerts, tracks and monitors employee performance by indicating date and time the transactions they have undertaken were performed which greatly improves accountability. She added that the system also provides an audit trail indicating as to who did what at what time and also tracks turn around time for services promoting adherence to set service standards.