NWR prepares for life after lockdown

By Confidente Reporter

NAMIBIA Wildlife Resorts (NWR) has been hard at work to address some limitations it identified within some of its resorts in Etosha National Park. At the same time, the state-owned tourism company has been preparing its soon-to-be-launched Hospitality Institute (Hi) due to open later this year.

In a press statement, NWR said in the absence of tourists at various resorts due to travel restrictions that were instituted by government to safeguard Namibian lives, they saw an opportunity to fast-track the work that started before the travel restrictions were introduced. So far, Okaukuejo has seen the renovation of the campsite ablution facilities and field kitchen.

At Halali, efforts have been made to improve the look and feel of the resort.

“These renovations aimed to ensure that we can give our guests the best possible experience when they visit us. With the opening of the national parks, we would like to encourage families to visit us as we currently have a special, where all our rooms (excluding food and beverages) are N$600, except Khorixas single rooms, Hardap dormitories, Shark Island Lighthouse and Mile 108 Fisherman chalets. Our campers will be happy to know that they will only pay N$100 per person,” said Dr Matthias Ngwangwama, NWR acting managing director.

He said NWR has been working to put finishing touches to its planned Hospitality Institute, which will focus on improving the quality of customer service within the company. The establishment of the institute is a strategic intervention to that end.

“One of the challenges raised within the tourism sector is the weak service levels. Therefore, as an organisation, we have made an intentional decision to remedy this by ensuring that our team members undergo periodic training in order to equip them with the right skill set.

Thus far, we have already started building capacity amongst our leadership team. Therefore, the public must be on the lookout as we put everything in motion to launch our Hospitality Institute,” Ngwangwama said.