“Take a look at Gaborone, it started as a railway town but now it’s a vibrant city. The journey of ‘Gabs City’, from railway town to vibrant city is full of rich history that must be shared and told.
In 2017, Gabs Experience was born, in order to package information in the capital city and provide city tours. Under the auspices of Project124, Gabs Experience got mentorship on how to prepare its value proposition, validate its market as well as gaining experience on how to pitch to different investors. The network provided by Project124, was a stepping ladder to its sudden success and resilience over the years of its formation.
Why Urban Tourism?
Take a look at Gaborone, it started as a railway town but now it’s a vibrant city. The journey from railway town to vibrant city is full of rich history that must be shared and told. As the town and country continues to grow, we attract many business tourists from all over the world and someone needs to show them around. We make them aware of this special “Side dish” they can incorporate in their travels. A side dish that makes them marvel at the hospitality of our people, the rich history of our city, the game drives closely located, the bustling night life and the young entrepreneurs in main mall and other areas that make this town colourful. Locals can also take up city tours to learn more about their city and become de facto ambassadors. Last but not least, we all need to share in the tourist income that the country is enjoying.
We make them aware of this special “Side dish” they can incorporate in their travels…Malaki Monyamane (CEO – The Gabs Experience)
The Gabs Experience
We are a fully-fledged tourism enterprise with license D and E. This means we are both a travel agency and tourism transfers firm. To give clarity on the distinctions between the two, a travel agency reserves and prepares tourist travel arrangements, a travel transfers license allows you to transport tourists locally and regionally. Acquiring these accreditation has been a major milestone for our firm and positions us to earnestly champion our city tours footprint in all major towns in the country.
Our experience offering
As Gabs Experience, we aim to make your city experience with us truly memorable. Firstly, we try to familiarise ourselves with our clients, if they have visited the city before or not, probe their interests and tailor make packages that are geared to these interests. Our tailored offering is for corporates, groups and individuals. Some of our standard packages include Educational Tours, family tours, Chisanyama Experience, Entertainment and Music Experience. Our Educational tours include trips to places such as the Three Chief Monument, Bonnington Farm where Cecil John Rhodes resided, National Art Gallery, Kgale Hill, BDF Monument and Sir Seretse Khama statue, Botanical Gardens just to mention a few. Family tours mainly include outdoor excursions to places like Mokolodi and Gaborone Game Reserve, where you can be treated to scenic views, bush braai and game viewing. The Botswana heat can be ruthless and the water activities at Lion Park is always a welcome relief for kids, the lion viewing and various fun rides add to the overall thrill of the place. The Chisanyama Experience explores places like Ed-Las and the night ends with Entertainment and Music at some of the most trending clubs in Gaborone.
Project124 gave us the opportunity to learn how to craft our value proposition, and to validate our market as well as gaining experience on how to pitch to different investors. The network provided by Project124, was a stepping ladder to our sudden success and resilience over the years of our company’s formation.”…Malaki Monyamane (CEO – The Gabs Experience)
Product Diversification
In 2019, Gabs Experience launched its inaugural cultural exchange experience between Botswana and Mozambique. The event was attended by tourists from Mozambique and allowed attendants to share experience through music, food and clothing. It hosted one of the best DJs from Mozambique, Dj Dilson as well as the then best house DJ in Botswana, Dj Benny-T. This prestige event hosted delegates from the Mozambique embassy in Botswana and other delegates based in Botswana. Furthermore, it was covered by Maru TV, chanel 291 on DSTV.
Economic Impact
As Gabs Experience we take pride in knowing that we are able to incorporate street hawkers to your premier hotels, small businesses, transportation companies and small bread and breakfast establishments into our service model. Such is the power of inner city tours, it has the ability to grow and help share in tourism revenue. Our wish is for organisations like the Botswana Tourism Organisation to provide assistance to companies such as ours, so as to boost city tourism. Botswana towns are sated with history, art, cultures and musical talent that can easily be packaged to create a booming inner city tourism industry.
Future plans
Our slogan is ambitious but we are already making headway in making it a reality, “Pride of Intra-African Tourism”. We have started to penetrate the South African and Mozambican markets recently. Post COVID_19 impacts, we want Gabz Experience to compete and operate like a first class City tours travel and transfers organization. The creation of an online booking system is one way of getting us closer to that vision. Within the next year or two we would like to replicate our Gaborone city tours model to cut across the country and expand to other African towns.