Covid won’t kill Namibia’s tourism

Jo-Maré Duddy – Although Namibia’s tourism industry is one of the biggest casualties of the global Covid-19 pandemic, industry leaders are positive that the sector’s potential after the coronavirus remains strong.

“I do not believe that Namibia has suffered any reputational damage as tourism destination due to the Covid pandemic. Actually, I believe quite the opposite is true,” says the chairman of the Federation of Namibian Tourism Associations (Fenata) and the interim chairman of the Tour and Safari Association of Namibia (TASA), Bernd Schneider.

The chief executive officer of the Hospitality Association of Namibia (HAN), Gitta Paetzold, agrees: If there is one positive aspect about this global pandemic, it is the fact that Namibia's image as desirable travel destination has not been tarnished at all.”

“To the contrary, we are convinced that given our set-up - a country with wide open spaces, sparse population, sunshine in abundance and a good infra-structure - Namibia may well be seen as most ideal post-Covid destination to escape to from the shackles of lockdown and overcrowded spaces,” Paetzold continues.

‘Tourism drought’

Their optimism doesn’t diminish the fact the Namibia’s lockdown and travel restrictions, coupled with global travel bans have ravaged the industry and lead to huge lay-offs of workers.

“Unfortunately, the situation is extremely bad. Nearly all tourism entities had hardly any income in the last three months,” Schneider says.

“The tourism industry came to a complete standstill,” Paetzold concurs.

“The companies very quickly faced cash-flow problems and needed to look at major cost-cutting measures to try to save the business and survive the ‘drought’ in tourism flow,” she adds.

The chief executive officer of the Namibia Professional Hunting Association (NAPHA), Tanja Dahl, comments: “For all intense and purposes all hunting professionals are jobless at the moment. To give you an indication, 69% of our members solely rely on the income of trophy hunting, which is 99% reliant on foreign visitors to Namibia.”

According to Paetzold, the insecurity about what is to come is the worst.

“There is no way of taking calculated risks, not knowing when to expect tourism to return to destinations. Therefore even the offers of favourable loans seem too great a risk at present. Unfortunately, the financial assistance through stimulus packages offered also seem too little, too late to secure the 100% survival of all tourism enterprises,” she elaborates.

“The Covid-crisis displayed our weaknesses in all brutality, but it also give us a chance to address these weaknesses and come out as a more competitive tourism destination with an even more meaningful impact on the Namibian economy and society at large,” Schneider says.

United front?

“We were hoping that given the global pandemic, we as a nation would stand together to ensure that as a unit, Namibia could fend off the impact of this on our travel sector,” Paetzold says.

However, despite active engagement with government, unions and employers, illustrating by fact and figures the huge impact on tourism and explaining that special approaches regarding labour would be required, the stakeholders “unfortunately” didn’t share the industry’s perception, she says.

“The choice to pronounce special Covid-related labour directives made the situation for employers in tourism especially very, very difficult and sadly also in some instances affected the levels of trust and understanding,” she adds.

“The Covid pandemic has brought about challenges to any socio-economic system in an unprecedented scale,” Schneider says.

“It is therefore of utmost importance that government, unions and private sector work towards the common goal of getting through this with the least possible damage,” he adds.

Schneider continues: “Unfortunately, here in Namibia there still is significant distrust between all three of the above mentioned parties, often based on the various interactions through-out the last couple of years.

“As a country, we have to get to a point again, where we can have open and frank discussions about important matters, especially in times of crisis, without generally assuming that the other party is only acting in self-interest.”

Paetzold says “going forward, and with the revelation that actions taken by businesses were not premature and unnecessary, but vital to save businesses, may open up ways of closer co-operation, better understanding and trust from government”.

Support

Tourism sector still does not “enjoy the understanding and support through an ‘all-of-government-approach’ that would be required to provide the most conducive playing field to advance the sector, Paetzold maintains. This is despite “intense engagement and awareness of the value and impact of tourism on the national economy and its potential for job creation”.

She says there “seems to still be a large degree of ignorance of the impact of tourism, and even the attempts by the minister of environment and tourism to establish an ‘inter-ministerial committee on tourism’ has still not received the support from other ministries that is necessary to move this sector forward, and for the entire Namibia to put their support behind this industry as the unique export product provider that tourism can become”.

According to Paetzold, budget allocations in the past and again this year are proof that, in the eyes of government, tourism is not worthy of more than a fraction of a percentage of the national budget.

“We are thus left to compete at international level with other destinations, the governments of which are investing millions and millions of dollars in destination marketing efforts,” she says.

Opportunities

Namibia has a good selection of products to attract clients, Paetzold says.

“In recent years, much has been done and invested to diversify from a country of safari and wildlife to active tourism, including sports, culture, adventure and eco-tourism,” she explains.

Paetzold believes the sector could focus on expanding its wellness and lifestyle products in future.

“We believe that going forward, the global travel will put even more emphasis on health and wellbeing, as well as the ‘footprint’ of tourism. So there will be a shift away from mass-tourism to a more exclusive, considerate travel, travel with purpose and Namibia is predestined to do well in that spectrum,” she says.

Schneider agrees: “Namibia has an abundance of untouched nature, the country is sparsely populated and our tourism industry is primarily based on nature-based activities and tours. These are all characteristics which will be much sought-after in the post-Covid tourism world. Namibia is definitely fully geared to remain a much-desired travel destination after Covid.”

Community-based tourism is exactly one of Namibia’s exclusive elements of its tourism sector, “as the intimate and direct experience that visitors have visiting communities and learning about their traditions and cultures, makes our product and destination unique”, Paetzold says.

Dahl believes community-based tourism has “without any question” great potential.

“To provide an authentic Namibian experience, these two products [community-based tourism and hunting] are often intertwined. Education, training and an enabling environment should be increased to grow this part of tourism,” she adds.

Competitiveness

Paetzold explains that competition is very often reduced to pricing.

“And yes, often Namibia is seen as expensive and ‘outpricing itself’ in the market as the general public may look as far as the price of a service to make a choice, without considering what is behind the service provision.

“Namibia has some very unique selling points at all levels … and it is the personal touch that makes Namibia still stand out against the rest,” she says.

“What we hear from our foreign partners, they are very eager to come back to Namibia for more of these unique experiences to which they place high value and are willing to pay a premium,” she adds.

Despite the current hardships, tourism remains to be the most promising economic sector for Namibia for the foreseeable future, Schneider believes.

“The Covid-pandemic is a short-term crisis, which unfortunately has a significant impact on tourism and our country, but in the medium and long term, tourism is the economic sector that has the best chance of wide-spread employment creation and overall socio-economic upliftment,” he says.