Staff Reporter
WINDHOEK – Team Namibia was participating at the Namibia Tourism Expo. With a small stand of nine square metres, the non-governmental, non-profit organisation, took part in one of Namibia’s main exhibition in order to create awareness of the importance of buying and supporting local.
The organisation reached out to service providers in the tourism sector, to join Team Namibia. Businesses in one of Namibia’s currently most lucrative industries would benefit from the association with the Team Namibia trademarked logo “member of Team Namibia”. In turn, tour operators’ and accommodation providers’ association with the brand, would also support the brand to reach much wider geographical coverage and spread the information about the value of Namibian services and products, to all corners of the world.
Team Namibia’s slogan “together our future is brighter” says it all. It is all about collaboration. The mobilising force aims to get all sectors on board to carry the message that all need to support Namibian service providers, including manufacturers and producers.
Bärbel Kirchner, account director of Team Namibia says: “We can further build on Namibia’s strength of tourism exports. Ideally, we should not only expose all visitors to Namibia to local services and local products, but also to our development dreams as a country.
“We must remember that a holidaymaker in Namibia, could very well be the future importer of products or services from Namibia, or indeed become an investor in our country. At the very least, a visitor to Namibia upon returning home, can be an ideal ambassador for our country.”
She said Namibia must build on the incredible mileage already achieved. This would secure the ultimate return of Namibia’s international tourism marketing efforts. Getting one visitor to Namibia, is a long process. She dded that it is not a spur of the moment decision. A visitor to Namibia she said would have had numerous deliberate engagements over a period of time through the marketing activities of Namibia’s international tourism marketing expertise, conducted skilfully by Namibia’s tourism authority and its satellite offices and agents overseas, and its tourism partners in respective markets.
Kirchner states that one should look at it from a marketing perspective. Tourism marketing initiatives and trade and investment promotion for Namibia, respectively, can build on each other’s successes. Both require enormous resources to compete in an extremely competitive international environment.
“Every visitor to Namibia holds enormous value and potential to our country – we should not see a visitor solely as someone as being at leisure. Of course, first and foremost we must focus on their immediate need and ensure the ultimate holiday experience. But every host – as Namibians we are all hosts –should look beyond that and share our story about why we love our country and the development dreams of our country.
“Essentially, every business that displays our trademarked Team Namibia logo, signifies that they are encouraging the support of buying local products and services – even to their clients from overseas.”