Erongo Governor, Neville Andre Itope, has called for flexible ways to operate within any pandemic without disadvantaging the tourism sector, employment rate and not risking people’s lives.

According to Itope, the COVID-19 pandemic, which saw a drastic loss to the industry when no travel was allowed, should be considered a learning curve.

“Whilst tourism is always a source of foreign income, the bulk of the hospitality industry is supported by locals. When no travel was allowed within our borders and curfews and alcohol bans and limits on the number of people in a space were enforced, the entire industry suffered immensely.

Our locals supported the sector during the difficult times, I am therefore urging operators to attract local tourists to their facilities and locals should also visit local tourist facilities before going outside the country,” he noted.

The governor was speaking at the launch of the Erongo Regional Tourism Forum at Swakopmund on Wednesday.

The main objective of the Tourism Forum is to oversee and coordinate regional tourism development, economic growth, equitable benefit distribution from tourism development and financial self-sustainability of the region.

The functions of the forum include providing a platform for information-sharing regarding tourism development and growth and identifying and discussing challenges impeding tourism, among others.

Not more than 15 members from specific institutions have been appointed to the forum.

The secretariat role will be provided by the Ministry of Forestry and Tourism, through which the forum was established under the National Sustainable Tourism Growth and Development Strategy (NSTGDS).

Deputy Director for Tourism Development Directorate of Tourism and Gaming, Elise Hashikutuva at the same event noted that tourism needs to be recognised as the most competitive business and therefore competitiveness should be enhanced.

“NSTGDS calls for the establishment of various bodies in order to organise and better represent all the relevant stakeholders in the tourism sector. This includes the establishment of Regional Tourism Forums such as this.

The NSTGDS’s vision is to grow a vigorous and dynamic economic sector that brings social and economic benefits to all Namibians via the generation of jobs and incomes,” Hashikutuva said.

Source: The Namibian Press Agency