2015-05-19Staff Report 2 The Deputy Minister of Environment and Tourism, Tommy Nambahu, says there is a need for Namibians to explore regional tourism for the country to harness its historic and cultural resources. Nambahu yesterday did the urging when giving feedback on the Indaba Tourism Fair held last week in Durban, South Africa in which Namibia took part. He said among the issues agreed upon by the 24 attending countries was that Africa should strive to harness its cultural and historical resources to market and present the continent as a truly unique and authentic destination for the world to visit. “We need to market regional tourism. As Namibians we need to market our historic events. When are we going to market historic sites? For example, we just hear President Hage Geingob was born in Tsumeb but we don’t know the street. It should be seen that tourism is everyone’s business,” he noted. He also called on each and every region to come up with an own tourism plan to promote the industry. Further, he also called on taxi operators to come on board especially when it comes to treating tourists decently. “It is important to include Nabta (Namibia Bus and Taxi Association) so that they can be trained as taxi operators on how they should behave towards tourists. How many of you have seen a taxi driver open a door for a customer? They have to learn to behave like gentlemen,” he said. Another issue he raised from the Indaba was that the next ministerial session should consider putting systems in place to advance uni-visas within the continent. Moreover during a ministerial session, Nambahu said, delegates focused on the state of Africa’s readiness for tourism investment and constraints to investment promotion, the importance of tourism towards building economies, collaboration between the public and private sectors in growth tourism, visa and travel facilitation as well as ways of improving intra-African travel. The deputy minister urged residents especially shebeen owners in various towns and villages to keep Namibia clean at all times. “I will push for waste management until I leave this ministry. I don’t need permission from the president that someone needs to keep their places clean. We need to keep all towns and villages clean. We don’t need heaps of rubbish lying around,” he remarked. The Indaba is one of the largest tourism marketing events on the African calendar and is also one of the top three ‘must visit’ events of its kind on the global calendar. 2015-05-19Staff Report 2
