Tourism booming – Gondwana

In August the Gondwana Collection experienced their best monthly occupancy since the group’s inception twenty years ago. “More and more overseas tourists are travelling to Namibia to enjoy the luxury of space and guaranteed sunshine” the group said this week announcing its record breaking month.
“The bed occupancy rate for August reached a surprising 78.6%. This is a number we have never reached before,” said the Reservations Manager, Leez Hövelmann.
“The numbers have increased with nearly 10% when comparing it to the August statistics of the past five years, and the coming months are looking very promising,” she added. The Gondwana Collection consists of fourteen lodges throughout the country and a hotel in Swakopmund. Over the past month the properties received more guests than expected and surpassed already optimistic forecasts. Previous records were smashed with Etosha Safari Camp at 99% occupancy, followed by Namib Desert Lodge at 88% and the Canyon Lodge and Namushasha River Lodge, each at 83%. “We’ve seen a steady increase in tourist numbers since the beginning of this year”, said Gondwana Collection’s Financial Director Jaco Visser.
“Through the combination of the demand from tourists and tour operators and the effective coordination of our reservations system, we managed to achieve such an excellent occupancy. We would like to thank the tour operators who handled their block bookings responsibly,” he said alluding to the excellent relationship between tour operators and Gondwana.
Tour operators find the Gondwana Collection particularly pleasing to work with since they can conduct tours anywhere in Namibia, and still only deal with one company for all their bookings. Gondwana’s Managing Director Mannfred Goldbeck said, “Currently the stars are smiling down on tourism. Namibia is considered as a safe travel destination thanks to its political stability and good infrastructure. Then you add the good marketing strategy the Namibia Tourism Board in Frankfurt has in place, the weak Rand, and of course the new airlines that fly to our country”.
Meanwhile, Namibia’s tourism statistics reveal that foreign arrivals increased by 3% from 2014 to 2015. The Tourist Statistics Report for 2015, which was launched a fortnight ago, reveals that the tourism market for Namibia in 2015 was dominated by Angola, South Africa, Zambia, Germany, Britain, the United States, and France. The report noted that regardless of the tourist origin, most tourists visited Namibia during the last quarter of the year, which accounted for 28.3% of all arrivals.