Namibia recently launched its 6th edition of the Tourism Satellite Account (TSA), signifying an important milestone for the country’s tourism sector. Namibia forms part of an exclusive list of African nations, including Uganda, Zanzibar, Rwanda and Kenya, that have developed a TSA in recent years.
While Namibia has produced previous versions of the TSA, this latest 2022 edition is particularly noteworthy. It represents the first TSA compiled predominately by a Namibian team, comprising staff from the Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism, the Namibia Statistics Agency, UN agencies led by UNECA, and various other key stakeholders.
Unlike prior editions that used the WTTC methodology, this TSA applied the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) framework.
The report focuses exclusively on the direct economic impact of tourism for now, with the team committed to expanding the analysis to indirect effects in future editions. Additionally, plans are in place to develop complementary reports examining sub-sectors like cultural tourism and aviation.
The 2022 TSA contains extensive data on tourism’s contribution, including the headline finding that the sector generated 7% of Namibia’s GDP last year. In monetary terms, that equates to N$ 14.3 billion. This figure should be considered in the context of 2022 still being a recovery year from the COVID-19 pandemic’s economic effects. This makes the contribution of the tourism sector even more noteworthy, reflecting its resilience and potential for growth.
Arguably the greatest value of Namibia’s TSA lies in the broadened ownership of the tourism sector’s monitoring and analysis. With more authorities invested in accurately capturing tourism’s impact, the industry may gain increased recognition and critical budget allocations to unlock greater growth potential.
The report’s emphasis on direct impacts lays the groundwork for future explorations into the broader economic, social, and environmental dimensions of tourism.
As UN Resident Coordinator Hopolang Phororo stated, tourism presents the perfect avenue for African countries like Namibia to transition from extraction-based economies to more sustainable, value-added models.
The promising teamwork and fruitful capabilities demonstrated in the 2022 TSA are exciting harbingers of even better measurement and understanding of Namibia’s tourism sector in the future. The collaborative efforts to craft this report may prove vital steps on the country’s journey to optimise the benefits of tourism for national development.
To access the TSA PDF, click here.