Ebola causes economic chaos Jan Poolman Thursday, September 25, 2014 - 08:00 News A SECOND international conference to be hosted in Namibia has been cancelled due to the current outbreak of the Ebola virus, mainly in West African countries. At the same time, some tourists also decided to postpone their visit to Namibia despite the fact that the sub-Saharan country is located thousands of kilometres from the affected areas and an international campaign launched by the Namibia Tourism Board (NTB) to inform agents and stakeholders about the situation in the Land of the Brave. Tarah Shaanika, chief executive of Namibia’s Chamber of Commerce ascribed this attitude to international ignorance and the persistent perception of “Africa the country”. “Each African country, including Namibia, has to do more to sell the brand of the individual countries and, in general, Africa as a peaceful continent with vast investment opportunities to the international community.” In August, Brazilian executives cancelled a visit to Namibia to attend an international oil conference over fears about Ebola. The fourth meeting of African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States (ACP Group) was scheduled to have started at Swakopmund on 22 September and lasted until 25 September, but Fisheries and Marine Minister Bernard Esau confirmed that the ACP Secretariat decided unanimously that it should be postponed until further notice due to the current Ebola outbreak in West Africa. “It would have been the first of its kind to be hosted by Namibia and we expected about 400 delegates to attend the meeting. Namibia will still host the conference when new dates have been determined,” Esau told Informanté. The CEO of the Hospitality Association of Namibia (HAN), Gitta Paetzold, confirmed that Ebola has a negative effect on Namibia’s tourism sector despite the fact that the Ministry of Health goes out of its way to implement precautionary measures at all entry points in Namibia. “It is a matter of ignorance and especially people from Europe have the perception that if one incident occurred in an African country that same incident already spread to all other African countries.” NTB CEO, Digu //Naobeb said that Namibia’s status and readiness to combat Ebola were sent to international agents and NTB offices abroad. “We gave them the assurance that Namibia is safe and secure when it comes to Ebola.”
Posted on: Fri, 26 Sep 2014 13:00:00 +0000
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