Namibia’s tourism industry is making up ground on its southern African counterparts, with a recovery of leisure tourism from international source markets driving occupancies up to an average of 53.1% in the third quarter of 2022.

The latest accommodation statistics from the Hospitality Association of Namibia (HAN) show that occupancies are significantly higher than last year’s third-quarter figure of 19.9%, but some ground still needs to be made up to reach the 2019 figure of 64.3% over the same period.

“A very positive and encouraging result to see the Namibian tourism recovery advance to this level in this short time-span and (this is) proof that most of our source markets are back in full swing,” said HAN CEO, Gitta Paetzold, of the results, which were gathered from 110 HAN members across the country.

Central Europe, the traditional top source market region for Namibia, contributed to 66% of overall occupancies.

“Over 35% of these stem from Germany, Austria and Switzerland, but the French and Italian markets were also prominent in both August and September,” said Paetzold.

By travel type, leisure accounted for 98.5% of occupancies, compared with 87% in 2019. Business and conferencing is seeing a slower recovery, making up just 1.5% of occupancies, compared with 13% in 2019.  

“A noteworthy observation is the fact that the level of occupancy by Namibians in the third quarter stood at 19.5%, which is 3% lower than it was in 2019, which could be a result of the growing financial constraints felt by Namibians,” Paetzold added.