The Walvis Bay Tourism Forum has revealed its tourism brand on Tuesday, which will better market the town.
The brand was introduced by the municipality’s tourism promotion officer, Johanna Monde, at its forum meeting at Walvis Bay.
The town will be promoted under the tag line ‘Where your desert journey begins’.
“Walvis Bay is perfectly positioned between the Namib Desert dunes, the ocean and an extensive lagoon, which provides a unique perfect picture and prominent adventure destination. We took to social media and asked the public to help us with a tagline for Walvis Bay tourism. This is now our tagline. We will be plugging in this tag to everything related to Walvis Bay tourism. This is what we want to be known for. We are requesting people in the tourism and accommodation business to use it and spread the word” Monde says.
The forum also developed marketing tools that will further enhance the promotion of the town through a tourism brochure, video, photo gallery, social media hashtag, tourist safety guide and an events calendar, among others, while a tourist map and exhibition materials are in the pipeline.
The town has been attracting world-class cruise liners, which brings the need for the town to remain an appealing destination for visitors.
Monde says council is thus continuously busy with interventions to maintain competitiveness.
“Tourists return and tell their friends about their experience. It will become a problem if we give them bad treatment. We intervened into solving some challenges. We temporarily allocated space for some vendors at a time and registered them for tracing purposes. We are working on a taxi identification system. We have involved the law enforcement agencies to assist us. We need to keep the tourists safe.” Monde says.
The municipality’s general manager for community and economic development, Erikson Mwanyekange, was grateful for the sector members’ contributions on how tourism in the town can be improved.
“There were contributions in the meeting on a number of issues that can help the tourism part of the municipality. These are assignments for us, as we strive to create an enabling environment for the tourism industry to flourish. Our town is doing fairly good, but can do better. It is our intention to aid those in the small and medium enterprise part of this sector,” he says.
The tourism forum also announced its tourism advisory board that will work with area stakeholders and with the municipal council in the promotion of Walvis Bay as a tourism destination.
It will advise and make recommendations to the council on destination development and the promotion of tourism at the town.
The board is solely advisory, with no power to declare or establish policy and will not receive remuneration for services.
The board consists of 9 voting members and three 3 additional members elected at the annual tourism forum from different sectors that will serve a three-year term.
They may be re-elected for a maximum of 6 years.
The members are Fiona Amon, Chrizelda George, Trevor Ndjadila, Gerson Nuxab, Amalia Peake, Kenneth Nependa, Connor Mathieu, Cliff Shikwambi and Marko Jansen Van Vuuren.
The forum was established in 2018.
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