Namibia’s tourist arrivals continued their upward trend before the commencement of the country’s peak tourism season (May to September), with April achieving the highest monthly occupancy rate so far this year.
This is according to a hospitality statistics report for April 2023 released by investment research firm Simonis Storm Securities on Monday (May 22).
The country’s hotel occupancy rate in April reached 51.8%, compared with 36.5% recorded in the same month last year.
According to the report’s quarterly economic review, tourism will be one of the key economic drivers for the remainder of the year.
The report further noted that 22 610 rooms were sold in April, along with 44 482 beds.
“This is 65% lower, compared with 65 449 rooms sold in April 2019. The gap between the change in rooms and occupancy rates can be explained by fewer tourism facilities available, as some of them were forced to shut down due to the lockdown,” the report said.
Leisure tourism continues to be the main driver of tourist inflows, accounting for 98.3% of visitors in April 2023, while business travellers accounted for 1.7% and conference attendees for 0.02%, the firm said.
According to the Hospitality Association of Namibia, the growth in the proportion of visitors from Namibia’s main tourist source markets (i.e. Germany, Austria, and Switzerland) is partly due to the availability of ten direct flights a week between Windhoek and Frankfurt.
In addition, the current exchange rate is advantageous for foreigners in Namibia, as their stronger currencies give them more spending power. The inflows from Europe picked up in January and have been on an upward trend since then.
"Going forward, we, therefore, expect regional tourist inflows and domestic tourism to decrease, with international tourist inflows being the main driver of the ongoing recovery in tourism," the report added.
Namibia received the first group – in three years – of 20 tourists from China last week, following the dropping of the Asian powerhouse’s COVID-19 restrictions.
