Hikes in rates by Namibian hospitality establishments has been attributed to hotels and lodges taking advantage of improved tourist inflows, research firm Simonis Storm has noted.
This comes as the hotels and restaurants category in the Namibian Statistics Agency’s (NSA) consumer price basket has recorded a year to date (YTD) 9.4% average annual inflation, with the accommodation services sub-category having risen 16.2% on average YTD.
“On the other hand, catering inflation has remained stagnant, averaging 4.0% YTD. An increase in operating costs such as electricity, diesel, wages, food and interest rates have justified increasing accommodation rates.
“On the other hand, it can be that local hospitality establishments have increased rates to take advantage of improved tourist inflows,” Simonis Storm Economist Theo Klein said.
The latest national occupancy rate for October 2022 increased to 54.6% compared to 52.9% in the prior month and 33.8% in October 2021 according to the Hospitality Association of Namibia (HAN).
“YTD, the national occupancy rate averages 39.7%, compared to 22.3% in 2021 and 15.4% in 2020 for the same period (January to October),” Klein said, with most guests at nationwide hospitality establishments caming from Germany, Switzerland and Austria (39.7%), France (7.4%), South Africa (5.5%), UK and Ireland (3.9%) and Italy (2.7%).
“Hospitality establishments in the northern area recorded the highest occupancy rate (62.3%), followed by the coastal area (56.8%), central area (53.9%) and southern area (46.1%) in October 2022.”
The proportion of Namibian guests at local hospitality establishments increased from 16% in September 2022 to 22.2% in October 2022.
“This is the second consecutive month of increased locals making up total guests, signaling that Namibia’s peak tourist season has come to an end (as it normally does in September),” he said.
Klein forecasts the domestic tourism sector to support local economic activity in 2023.
“The tourism sector continues to play a key role in the Namibian economy, as it has strong links to other sectors and is an important enabler of job creation. The sector typically makes use of Namibia’s abundant unskilled labour and should be seen as a solution to high unemployment rates in certain rural areas. We continue to see favourable developments in the sector (e.g. nomad visas, green hydrogen projects at the coast, growing number of flights servicing local airports and no covid restrictions being in place),” he said.
