Humble beginnings to cultural travel guru: a Namibian success story

The founder and CEO of Hafeni Travel Tours, Heinrich Hafeni Nghidipaya (or Hafeni, as he is known affectionately in the community), is a true Namibian grassroots story. Born and raised at the Namibian coast, Nghidipaya was inspired by the entrepreneurial spirit of his mother, a domestic worker who also sold food as a means to make ends meet. As a teenager, in 1999, he managed to get work at the Swakopmund Hotel as a waiter. Although he juggled work and school reasonably, his matric results could not earn him a place at an institution of higher learning, and he continued to work at the hotel until the age of 23.

“I knew that I wanted to start my own business and I always had a passion for cultural tourism,” he says.

He left to pursue work at an international company as a tour leader, where he stayed until the age of 28, when he left to open his business.

He has not looked back since.

Another life

Hafeni Cultural Tours specialises in the provision of cultural tours throughout Namibia, enabling tourists to gain a sense of the day-to-day life of those living in townships. He says his dream of offering township tours stems from his own roots as a resident of the Swakopmund township.

“Hafeni Tourism Group Namibia is a Namibian tourism company that is wholly focused on cultural township tourism, taking tourists into the local communities where we introduce tourists to the real Namibia. I grew up in a township and, having worked in 14 countries in Africa, I know that tourists always want to experience visiting the local villages and communities to meet the ordinary people of different countries. I always organised extra activities like dinner with a chief in Malawi,” he says.

He believes that township tourism gives the communities an opportunity to realise their full potential.

“I think the townships can often have a bad image, so I wanted to offer township tours with the aim of developing the township and making it tourist friendly and also empowering the local people,” he says.

Continue to believe

Nghidipaya reminisces on the humble beginnings of his business. “I was saving up my salary and when I started, I needed a car, but I didn’t have enough money, so I used taxis. I could only take one person or two persons at a time, so it was not very sustainable. I bought my first bus with the help of my grandmother.”

He notes that his drive to keep going was incredibly necessary on his journey. “You get a lot of no’s and I think it was just the attitude. I think I was more inspired by the fact that I’m a face that can inspire many of my community’s youngsters – I knew that my success could become the success of our youngsters and that’s why I continued to believe,” he says.

He believes township tours offer a platform for local people to create their own narrative, instead of allowing other sources to speak for them. “I think in this way, we are telling our own story.

Different side

“The town of Swakopmund is such a German town it could lead tourists to wonder if everyone lives like this, so the township of Mondesa offers an African experience. I get to take these tourists to experience a different part of our beautiful Namibia. The same in Windhoek where you get to see the nice cosmopolitan side and the German historical buildings, but there’s also a community where local people are living life. That’s what Hafeni Travel Tours is all about. We want to tell you a positive story of Namibia,” he says.

Nghidipaya has also opened a restaurant that offer tourists and locals a taste of traditional Namibian dishes like mahangu, matangala, mopane worms, tilapia fish and smileys (sheeps head).

In 2014, Nghidipaya and a friend came to learn of the Mandela-Washington fellowship, which afforded 500 bright minds from all over the world the opportunity to study in the United States of America for six weeks. Despite his friend being chosen as a fellow, Nghidipaya fell short, but true to his character, he applied again the following year and became a Mandela-Washington fellow of 2015.

The University of Clark in Atlanta, Georgia, hosted Nghidipaya and the other fellows while they completed an entrepreneurship and business programme.

In October of that year, Nghidipaya was inducted into the Namibian Business Hall of Fame as a laureate.

“These are outstanding people who have worked tirelessly to shape the economy of Namibia, being employers on a major scale, and their enormous contributions are recognised when inducted into the Namibian Business Hall of Fame,” said Dixon Norval, the chairman of Junior Achievement Namibia, the NGO behind the instatement of the Namibian Business Hall of Fame.