Namibia’s national parks attracted nearly one million visitors in 2025, bucking the country’s wider tourism slowdown as overall international tourist arrivals declined for the first time since the industry’s post-pandemic recovery.
The Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism’s 2025 Tourist Arrivals Statistical Report shows visits to national parks increased by 5.4% to 994,780 in 2025 from 943,408 the previous year. Of those visitors, 816,730 were international tourists while 178,050 were Namibians, with Etosha National Park retaining its position as the country’s most visited conservation area.
The strong performance by national parks came despite international tourist arrivals falling by 3.2% to 1,217,108 in 2025 from 1,257,093 in 2024, while total international visitor arrivals declined by 6.9% to 1,345,168.
Environment, Forestry and Tourism Minister Indileni Daniel said the inclusion of national park statistics in the annual report marked an important milestone for the sector.
“On a positive note, it gives me pleasure to announce that, for the first time, the report features statistics on visitor arrivals to our country’s national parks. This is indeed a milestone in improving our report,” she said.
Despite the improved park visitation figures, Daniel warned that the decline in tourist arrivals should not be ignored.
“While this marginal decrease may be viewed as statistically minor, we must treat it as a wake-up call and a clear signal to all of us to renew our focus and improve our competitiveness as a country to ensure that our value proposition continue to resonate with international travelers,” she said.
According to the minister, the tourism sector continues to face pressure from global economic conditions, changing traveller preferences, increased competition from rival destinations and safety concerns.
“It is of great concern to note that this decline is experienced in most of our key source markets such as Germany, South Africa and France. This decrease can be traced to specific factors that transpired during the year under review. The safety concerns that made headlines in international and local print and social media, that is, incidents of crimes committed against our tourists. This is an issue of major concern that we simply cannot and should not tolerate,” Daniel said.
She also acknowledged that the implementation of Namibia’s revised visa requirements experienced initial challenges that may have contributed to the decline.
“We recognize the implementation of the reviewed visa requirements… which had teething problems, and this might have also contributed to this fall. Despite this, the new visa requirements were necessary,” she said.
The report shows that holidaymakers accounted for 48.4% of all tourist arrivals, while visitors travelling to see friends and relatives made up 28.6%, business travellers 18.5%, and other travel purposes 4.5%.
African markets remained resilient, with tourist arrivals from the continent rising to 917,474, although arrivals from overseas markets declined to 299,634.
To strengthen the sector, Daniel said government will focus on restoring confidence in Namibia as a destination by improving tourist safety, strengthening destination marketing, expanding tourism products such as cruise and astro tourism, and implementing recommendations contained in the National Spatial Tourism Masterplan, including the establishment of a permanent tourism safety and crisis management working group.
