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AEGIS European Conference on African Studies
11 - 14 July 2007
African Studies Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands
The complexities of implementing national tourism policy in Namibia
| Panel |
1. Tourism in Africa
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| Paper ID | 84 |
| Author(s) |
Janis, Julia Kyllikki
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| Paper |
No paper submitted
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| Abstract | Like many other African countries, Namibia expects tourism to contribute towards national development goals such as economic growth, employment creation and poverty reduction. Tourism is also expected to support black economic empowerment and environmental sustainability. These have been listed in the ambitious tourism policy, which has been drafted for the past ten years and is finally close to being officially approved.
This research aims to explore how close to ten selected private, communal and government tourism actors view the tourism policy’s central objectives in terms of their importance, value and applicability, as well as in terms of possible problems, constraints and inadequacies. The core material will be gathered during the first field work during December 2006 to February 2007. The field methods consist of interviews and observation.
The field results will be analysed by reflecting them to the Namibia’s postcolonial context with the history of segregation and the current policy of national reconciliation. Namibia also faces a challenge in being a relatively recent newcomer in the Southern African tourism industry which implies heavy competition and requires careful product development.
The presentation will introduce the preliminary findings from the field research in Namibia. The results are expected to provide some answers to the question of how applicable the new Namibian tourism policy is in terms of different actors in various situations and what issues need to be considered in order to guarantee effective policy implementation.
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