Tourism experts say the festive season is not much of a tourism peak season for Namibia, except for the local and regional travellers. The tourism industry however expressed its readiness to host post-Covid travellers as most operators have fully embraced and continue to embrace tourists’ safety protocols that were adopted during the pandemic.
Namibia Tourism Board (NTB) chief executive officer Digu //Naobeb this week said international travel is seasonal. “In fact, everybody would want to spend Christmas with their loved ones. Hence, December for Namibia has been a low season for international travellers except for intra-African travellers from the neighbouring countries like Botswana and South Africa who started frequenting the coastal region,” he noted. A cursory glance at online accommodation offerings in the holiday hub of Swakopmund shows little vacancies around Christmas. He said Namibians have an opportunity to explore their country over the festive season as the likes of Namibia Wildlife Resort (NWR) have phenomenal black Friday offers up for grabs.
Environment and tourism spokesperson Romeo Muyunda said the ministry believes and has confidence that Namibia is still a preferred tourism destination by international tourists.
Muyunda stressed although the industry is still recovering from the impact of Covid-19, the latest statistics show a good increase over the past two years.
In 2020, the tourism industry recorded 169 565 international tourist arrivals, and 232 756 were recorded in 2021, showing an increase of 37%.
“This is a substantial increase, considering the current world economic situation. The pandemic with its movement’s restrictions brought about depression in the lives of many people, especially the usual traveller, and now that many countries have relaxed their protocols, tourism is booming again,” he commented.
Meanwhile, the Hospitality Association of Namibia (HAN) CEO Gitta Paetzold suggests Namibia has been experiencing a healthy tourism revival throughout this year already, with some places reporting about 70-80% back to pre-Covid times.
However, she said the festive season is not so much of a tourism peak season for Namibia, except for the local and to some extent the regional or neighbouring market.
“There have been challenges in terms of service delivery, availability of cars and flights, but all in all we can already look back on a positive year. Here the high fuel prices may prove to be a factor that may negatively affect travel numbers, as households will need to calculate their travel expenses carefully, and the cost of fuel has become a huge part of the overall travel costs,” Paetzold said.
NWR spokesperson Nelson Ashipala believes Namibia is still the most preferred destination because of good infrastructure and peace.
“Namibia still ranks number one because of its Covid relaxed rules and guidelines. We should also take note of the fact that Namibia was one of the first countries to open up and also relax some of its Covid restrictions. So Namibia is very much at the forefront when it comes to leisure travel,” he said.
According to him, international travel indications look positive for Namibia and NWR.
He said what the industry is seeing right now is positive trends in terms of realising post-Covid numbers. If the current trend continues, he believes Namibia will eventually go back to normal numbers that the country was indicating before Covid.
For October, according to the minister of health, no Covid-19 hospitalisations or deaths were recorded in Namibia. In August, he country removed all Covid-19-related restrictions instituted in early 2020.
“Importantly, a lot of the international markets that we were not able to tap into are starting to open up. This is mostly from the United States of America and other destinations. Things are also being made easier with the traveling of celebrities that are coming to Namibia, and obviously having to market our country very well to the maximum capacity,” Ashipala reacted.
–anakale@nepc.com.na