Tourism development strategies in Namibia: private and community perceptions on the national policy.

Abstract

This chapter discusses opportunities and challenges for implementing a national tourism policy in Namibia and, therefore, analyses the role of tourism in Namibia's post-apartheid transformation process. This will be done by reviewing the perceptions of private- and community-based tourism entrepreneurs of the major development objectives of the Namibian tourism policy. These are: (i) economic growth; (ii) employment creation; (iii) poverty reduction; (iv) black economic empowerment; (v) environmental and ecological sustainability; and (vi) reduction of regional development inequities. The research draws from three interdisciplinary fields, i.e. development studies, tourism studies and public policy research. The field research was carried out from December 2006 to February 2007 and from June to August 2008. Semi-structured interviews and field observation were carried out in three private trophy hunting farms, four private tourist lodges and four community-based tourism enterprises. The six tourism policy objectives were discussed with a total of 30 interviewees, and informal discussions were carried out with a further 52 individuals. The findings indicate that there are many challenges for policy implementation, which is already an inherently complicated process.

Tourism and rural community development in Namibia: policy issues review

“…However, the 2007 draft proposes a national tourism growth strategy that implies a clear emphasis on a growth-focused neoliberal approach as adopted by the Namibian government (Jauch 2001;MET 2007). Furthermore, the 2005 draft discusses the challenges and opportunities of CBT as a means of distributing the benefits of tourism, whereas the 2007 draft omits CBT and mentions only the need for partnerships between the private sector and local communities in order to distribute the benefits (Jänis 2009). In general, tourism in Namibia is considered to have major potential for employment and income generation in the country, and the role of communitybased tourism and community-based natural resource management with tourism development elements in particular are highlighted by national policies (Saarinen 2010).…”

“…Key enablers include peace and political stability, good governance, transport, developed information and communication technologies (ICTs) infrastructure, sound economic policies and community-based natural resource management (Jänis 2009). Namibia also has good prospects for accelerating growth.…”

“…The actual National Tourism Policy that focuses on the mainstream tourism sector has been under development since 1995. The first comprehensive draft was circulated to stakeholders in 2005 and the most recent draft was completed in 2007 (Jänis 2009). Both drafts state that the policy aims to provide long-term National Development Plans 2001/2-2005/6 and 2007/8-2011/12 (see NTB 2012.…”

“…In human geographical approaches to regional development and tourism, these issues of ethics, inequalities and sustainability, for example, are highly relevant both academically and societally (see Binns & Nel 1999;Gibson 2010;Saarinen 2014). Especially in the context of tourism and development, the local participation, tourism awareness, the devolution of power and benefit sharing have been highlighted with an emphasis on community-based tourism initiatives, which are highly relevant in the Namibian and wider southern African development policy contexts (Rogerson 2006;Jänis 2009;Saarinen 2011). Based on this relevance the paper uses Namibian community-based related policy documents by analysing their emphasised key aims which guide community participation in tourism development.…”

“…Especially in the Global South the growing tourism demand is seen highly beneficial as evolving tourism can create direct and indirect income and employment effects to the host regions, which have further emphasised community involvement and community-based tourism initiatives in many countries (Sinclair & Stabler 1997;Binns & Nel 1999;Saarinen & Rogerson 2014), including Namibia (Novelli & Gebhardt 2007;Jänis 2009;Lapeyre 2011). Tourism services and facilities can also improve the general level of infrastructure of a region which benefits local population by providing new, or maintaining the old, services and infrastructure (see Brown & Hall 2008).…”