By: Dwight Links
Investment firm Simonis Storm shared an assessment on the local hospitality industry’s performance for May 2026, stating that the industry is going from strength to strength.
Simonis Storm associate Almandro Jansen says that according to their sectoral report, hospitality has recorded its best performance for the month of May, even besting the positive May 2019 trends.
“Namibia’s hospitality sector posted its strongest May performance on record, with national occupancy rates reaching 62.17% for last month alone. This was a sharp increase from the 52.21% that was seen in May 2025,” the report outlines.
These statistics are based on the data provided by the Hospitality Association of Namibia (HAN).
“[This] is comfortably above the pre-pandemic May 2019 benchmark of 55.83%,” HAN confirmed on the performance.
Describing the main sources of the upward trajectory, Jansen said “The May 2026 statistics fell entirely within the shoulder season, suggesting that structural demand drivers including the onset of safari and nature-based tourism ahead of the winter dry season are gaining momentum earlier than historically observed.”
A shoulder season in travel or tourism is a period between a destination’s peak travel season and its off-peak season.
Origin Spread
According to the report, leisure travel was the most recorded reason for coming to Namibia.
“Leisure travel dominated at 97.69% of all arrivals, up from the 95.48% in May 2025 with the conference travel falling to zero and business travel easing to 2.31%,” explained Simonis Storm.
Germans, Austrians and Swiss led the analysis as the largest tourist contingents identified during the period under review.
“The DACH [Germany, Austria and Switzerland] bloc remains the largest source market at 37.57% of beds sold, while French visitors contributed 9.41%,” the analysis stated.
Other indicators show that total beds sold nationally stood at 58 456 in May 2026 alone, compared to the 91 088 that were sold in May 2025. This is because fewer outlets were recorded to have participated in the assessment in the space of a year.
In 2026, 60 properties were measured in the same period against 117 properties.
According to the report, even with the drop in outlets participating in the measurement for May 2026, a strong response from the demand drivers still allowed for the analysis to reflect an assessed development.
“The data underscores a meaningful shift in Namibia’s source market composition. The DACH bloc strengthened to 37.57% of all beds sold, up from 34.02% in 2025. This means reversing the softening trend observed earlier this year,” explained Jansen.
French visitors are the second largest European source, just below the 10.42% mark of 2025.
Following them are the BENELUX cluster that has expanded to 5.56% from the 4.34% recorded in 2025, while the UK and Irish tourists accounted for 3.20%, down from the 3.76% recorded in 2025.
From North America, USA and Canada contributed 4.59%, down from the 2025 level of 6.30%.
“This is consistent with the broader caution around long-haul expenditure in the North American market,” the report adds.
The Asian markets – excluding China – stood at 1.50%, while the Chinese visitors to Namibia made up 2.25% alone.
Domestic Picture
Domestically, locals accounted for 17.97% of beds sold.
“This broadly stays unchanged from 18% in May 2025, but approximately 8 percentage points below the 2019 levels,” notes the report.
According to the report, the gap indicates that Namibians may be travelling less, or increasingly making use of unlisted accommodation providers not captured in the national HAN database.
As for the country’s distribution per region that received these visitors, the Northern region delivered the highest occupancy rate at 65.19%. This is up from 58.74% in the 2025 period.
“Confirming that Etosha National Park and the broader Kunene corridor are attracting early-season visitors as the dry season approaches,” states the report on the increment.
HAN says wildlife sightings at waterholes were the main drivers of visits to the region for May, with the region appearing to be capitalising on the seasonal pull.
