Own Correspondent
Windhoek, June 3 – The Hospitality Association of Namibia (HAN) hosted a two-day tourism trade forum in Windhoek this week following a congress and tourism gala at Lüderitz in February this year.
The forum was aimed at providing HAN members and other tourism service providers a platform to engage tour operators, agents, and other key partners in the travel trade, to talk about products, prices, and procedures.
According to a statement from HAN, this year’s two-day closed meeting on a business-to-business format aimed to reconnect tourism stakeholders face-to-face, after two long years of being hidden behind screens and locked up spaces.
Under the theme “Unlocking new horizons”, the HAN Congress in 2022, helped unlock some of the amazing opportunities for growth and new tourism products, especially in southern Namibia.
The HTTF aims at looking beyond providing a platform for the Namibian travel industry and its partners to discuss issues of interest and concern, such as rates, policies, coordination, and relationship building, as well as brainstorming about innovative new tourism products for this southern African gem of a travel destination.
“Added to the mix was Qatar Airways, returning with scheduled flights to Namibia later this month and keen to reconnect with the Namibian travel trade, as well as FlyNamibia, the Namibian airline that in April introduced its scheduled Safari flights to some key tourism destinations within Namibia, in addition to scheduled flights to major towns across the country and Johannesburg in South Africa,” said the statement.
Due to the ever-increasing need to keep abreast of technological advances, two tech- companies also
presented innovative ways of communication and e-payment models for tourism, under the “Payment for Africa” banner.
Issues discussed during the B2B engagements were determined by participating and engaging tourism partners, but it is clear that pricing and tourism supply chain relationships are important, Namibians are keen to ensure that the tourism product ultimately put out in the international market meets and exceeds the wishes and demands of the international travel community eager to return to or explore new desirable travel destinations.
Tourism is everyone’s business, the success of which depends on strong and trusted partnerships of the tourism service providers who share the responsibility of preparing and positioning Namibia as a travel destination of choice said HAN.
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