Albertina Nakale
The tourism sector has welcomed Qatar Airways’ decision to resume direct return flights from Doha to Windhoek by July this year. At the moment, the direct (non-stop) flights between Windhoek-Doha have been inactive.
With Qatar back in July, the tourism sector expressed this move will most certainly bring huge relief to the industry keen to see arrival numbers grow.
This came to light after President Hage Geingob held a meeting with the group chief executive of Qatar Airways, Akbar Al-Baker in the Qatari capital, Doha.
“Qatar Airways plan on restarting operations to Namibia. They intend to commence flights from July 2022, beginning with two flights a week, which eventually can be ramped up to daily flights. The CEO, Akbar Al Baker noted that Qatar is convinced that Namibia has great potential when it comes to tourism and with the right investments, Namibia could become a world-class destination. Between Qatar Airways and the Qatar Investment Authority, Namibia can forge strong and enduring socio-economic bonds with committed partners,” announced presidential press secretary Alfredo Hengari yesterday.
The environment and tourism ministry spokesperson Romeo Muyunda said the direct flight resumption is good news for Namibia, and the ministry welcomes it.
Muyunda noted any air traffic to Namibia comes with a number of opportunities for the people and economy.
“We are particularly happy that this will boost the tourism sector which is currently severely affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. This could not have come at a better time when as a country, we are trying to revive the sector amid the pandemic. This is the boost our revival initiative requires,” he said.
The ministry also believes such a decision will instill a sense of confidence in other airlines to fly to Namibia. Tour operators are urged to use this opportunity to fly in their clients, adhering to set entry requirements to the country.
This, Muyunda said will help to further promote Namibia as a safe destination. Equally, he says it will further ease connectivity challenges for Namibia’s international leisure and business clients.
The Hospitality Association of Namibia (HAN) chief executive officer Gitta Paetzold said added air capacity will allow more people to fly into Namibia and help grow tourism arrival numbers.
She applauded the “excellent news”, saying Namibia relies on the international fly-in tourism market for its tourism recovery. “This is such an amazing, welcome and necessary announcement, as the limited air access to Namibia currently has proved to be a bottleneck to tourism recovery. Currently, there is more demand for Namibia from our long-haul source markets, than available flights, having led to very high prices for flights to Namibia in high season (July to October),” she stated.
–anakale@nepc.com.na