Business News

Brighton boosts Namibia's tourism

Published 17 December 2012

The University of Brighton is helping boost tourism in the southern African Republic of Namibia.

The university's Centre for Tourism Policy Studies (CENTOPS) is devising an international programme to train "welcome ambassadors" on best practice for greeting and treating visitors.

The Customer Service Train the Trainers Programme builds on the idea that the way holidaymakers are treated can be vital in how they experience a destination, and in encouraging them to return to it in the future and recommend it to friends and relatives.

Namibia is known for its stunning natural environment and it was named fifth best tourism destination in the world by the Lonely Planet in 2010.

The Commonwealth Secretariat commissioned Dr Marina Novelli and Mike Taylor from CENTOPS to develop a programme to enable Namibians involved in the visitor industry to gain core customer service skills.

Based on priorities identified by the "Tourism human resource strategy for Namibia", published in 2011, the project is aimed at enhancing "the visitor experience by improving customer service skills and destination knowledge of employees and volunteers through a high-profile customer service training initiative".

The Train the Trainers project began in Namibia's capital, Windhoek, in September with a stakeholders' workshop led by Dr Novelli. This focused on understanding the issues on the ground and involved key players from the destination who helped identify key components of the training needed.

Senior figures who spoke at the workshop included Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, Namibia's Honourable Minister of Tourism and the Environment; Digu Naobeb, Chief Executive of the Namibia Tourist Board (NTB) and Dr Davis Barasa from the Commonwealth Secretariat. Dr Novelli gave a keynote address on best practices in service standards and the role played by customer services in the tourism experience.

The university team, which also included Merz Hoare, from the university's School of Sport and Service Management, recently finalised the training material and the Train the Trainer programme is due to start in January 2013. It will be delivered in three locations across Namibia and will enable 60 Namibians to become certified customer service trainers to work with the NTB in the future.

Dr Novelli said: "The objective is to share knowledge and best practice to develop key customer service skills which would encourage tourists to visit and to return to Namibia. In tourism, as in any other sector, a satisfied customer is one of the most powerful sales and marketing tools for an organisation, service or product."

She continued, "Following on from similar projects in other Sub-Sahara locations, this is another example of how CENTOPS is getting involved in international cooperation projects that are aimed at devising tourism policy and practices with a visible impact on the tourism sector as a whole and on the livelihood of those directly and indirectly benefitting from it."

Improving the visitor experience in Namibia