Namibia is looking to host a ‘serious’ number of UK agents and operators on fam trips next year as part of a renewed push to stimulate travel to the southern African country
Traffic from the UK has been ‘a bit stagnant’ since the pandemic, said Matthias Lemcke, Director Europe of the Namibia Tourism Board, who was visiting UK agents and operators this week as part of a nationwide B2B roadshow.
Matthias was speaking at the first event, in London, which was attended by 45 members of the UK travel trade including representatives from Hays and Travel Counsellors as well as numerous specialist operators.
“We are showing face again to the UK travel industry,” he said. “We will take these kinds of roadshows as a sample for the years to come. There is going to be some focus on inviting the UK trade to come to Namibia on educational trips too.”
Three tours to Namibia will be given away at this week’s events – one each in London, Manchester and Edinburgh – and Mattias said group fam trips are also in the pipeline. “We will start by inviting product managers to Namibia and we will also be asking our partners to invite their highest-potential travel agents,” he added.
The trips are likely to take place from January to March, Namibia’s low season, but Matthias said there is a shortage of flight capacity. “We are facing a bottleneck with flights to Namibia. At certain periods of year, it is difficult to get seats,” he said.
“Nevertheless, next year I am sure we are going to have a serious number of tour operators and retail travel agents coming on educational trips and coming back to the UK as ambassadors.”
He said Namibia is in talks with Air France, Turkish Airlines ‘and others’ to start flights to Namibia, which would ease the bottleneck, but discussions are still at an early stage.
There are no direct flights between the UK and Namibia, so travel is usually via Ethiopia, South Africa or continental Europe, including Frankfurt.
