WINDHOEK, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) - Namibia's average hospitality occupancy in November exceeded 45 percent across the country, the Hospitality Association of Namibia (HAN) revealed in the third quarter (Q3) statistics of 2022 released Thursday.
The figures released for the Q3 2022 on Thursday are just 11 percent shy of the performance of 2019, pre-pandemic normality, and an increase of over 10 percent on the 2021 performance, a clear indication of the continued tourism recovery in Namibia, which in November reached almost 80 percent of normality, HAN CEO Gitta Paetzold said Thursday in a statement.
"Depending on the results of the final month, December, performance thus far indicates that Namibia will end the year 2022 at over 70 percent of pre-pandemic levels for the entire year, with the high season, July-October reaching nearly 80 percent," she noted.
According to Paetzold, the domestic market still represents some 25 percent of all occupancy, Central Europe over 50 percent, the South African market some 5.5 percent, and the UK and the USA some 4 and 3.4 percent respectively.
Paetzold hopes that with continued outreach and diverse marketing activities by the private sector across the globe, Namibia will be able to not only build on the tourism recovery but also grow and diversify its tourism source markets.
Namibia to revive the tourism sector adversely affected by the COVID-19 epidemic, over the past months introduced a tourism recovery strategic plan by the Ministry of Environment, Forestry, and Tourism to market the country's tourism sector aggressively. ■
