Latest Posts
Featured
Most Popular
Contribute
Become a Facebook Fan
Follow on Twitter
Network on LinkedInEcotourism finds funding in African nation of Namibia
Read more about: Africa, culture, economy, ecotourism, funding, government, jobs, South Africa, WTTC
Namibia has been chosen as the first US-based Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) client to receive a $70 million ecotourism grant in an effort to establish the nation as one of Africa’s leading tourism economies within ten years.
Namibia has been chosen as the first US-based Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) client to receive a $70 million ecotourism grant in an effort to establish the nation as one of Africa’s leading tourism economies within ten years.
The dollar amount is a fraction of the full $305 million being allocated by the MCC to develop education, tourism and agriculture in Namibia.
According to the Namibian Government, tourism is an important generator of employment, particularly in rural areas. With the grant in place, international tourism generated 15.6% of total exports ($650.6 million) in 2008 and are expected to grow to 22.6% ($2,092.8 million) by 2018. Meanwhile, the contribution of travel and tourism to the gross domestic product is expected to increase from 14.5% ($1,051.7 million) in 2008 to 20.7% ($2,967.9 million) by 2018 and from 18.2% (77,000 jobs) to 23.7% (129,000 jobs) of total employment in that same period.
While the tourism industry in Namibia has enjoyed steady growth since independence in 1990, Namibia has lagged behind relative to regional competitors despite its abundance of natural eco-tourism assets and relative political stability.
Compared to South Africa’s 9.2 million international visitors in 2007, Namibia received less than 1 million international visitors in the same year.
Building for success
The MCC grant will enable Namibia to become one of Africa’s leading tourism economies over the next decade.
According to the WTTC, growth in the travel and tourism economy of the country will rank the Namibia tourism industry 8th out of 176 countries, with a major focus on the Etosha National Park ($40.5m), marketing activity ($8.26m) and conservancy support ($18.19m).
For more information, visit www.mca.gov.na.
More like this:
Potential for greatness: New Mexico takes the fast-track to ecotourism 
China joins the Green Globe About the Author
Kristen is a student and freelance writer as well as an active member of Greenpeace. She has most notably published journals documenting environmental tourism studies in Fiji, The Galapagos and Costa Rica.
See more contributions (42 so far) from Kristen Geis.
Subscribe to TerraCurve via RSS
Giant sea turtles swimming up to safe haven in Panama 
San Francisco welcomes new shark exhibit in name of conservation 
Standing together for a better world 
Travel inspiration 2.0 
Why stronger regulations are crucial to combating climate change 
Pingback by Tweets that mention Ecotourism finds funding in African nation of Namibia : TerraCurve.com: Go beyond green. | Responsible travel news, places, people and events. -- Topsy.com on December 2nd, 2009:
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Joe Ascanio, Green Travel News. Green Travel News said: #GTFeeds : Ecotourism finds funding in African nation of Namibia- Namibia has been chosen as the first US-based Mil… http://bit.ly/5Et8et [...]
Trackback by uberVU - social comments on December 3rd, 2009:
Social comments and analytics for this post…
This post was mentioned on Twitter by GreenTravelNews: #GTFeeds : Ecotourism finds funding in African nation of Namibia- Namibia has been chosen as the first US-based Mil… http://bit.ly/5Et8et...
Comment by The_Refinishing_Touch on December 4th, 2009:
This is good news for both the Namibian government and international tourism. It’s great to see eco-tourism’s growth across the corners of the globe and we can’t wait to see the changes and improvements that come to Namibian people from this generous grant.
Comment by The_Refinishing_Touch on December 4th, 2009:
This is good news for both the Namibian government and international tourism. It’s great to see eco-tourism’s growth across the corners of the globe and we can’t wait to see the changes and improvements that come to Namibian people from this generous grant.