This year’s worthy recipient of the floating trophy is Maureen Posthuma,  NTB Manager of Central Europe,   based in Frankfurt,  who was handed the trophy by Fenata President Willem de Wet.
Maureen dedicated the award to Gideon Shilongo,  previous recipient and outgoing CEO of the NTB,  - and the entire NTB team:
Maureen Posthuma is Namibia Tourism Marketing - personified.  She has been investing all her energy,  time, efforts, heart and soul in promoting Namibia tourism, - for even longer than some of us have been in this business.
As far back as the early 1990’s, when tourism promotion was still vested within the Ministry of Environment and Tourism, Maureen,  together with Isabel Sigrist & team here in Windhoek, as well as Hella Goebel in Frankfurt, spent all her time and efforts to sell Namibia abroad.
For almost 15 years now,  with a brief break,  when Maureen tested waters at SATOUR in Frankfurt in 2001,  Maureen has been applying all possible avenues,  be it through media promotion campaigns,  interviews,  conferences, road shows, presentations to corporate businesses,  and many other endless efforts,  keeping Maureen either in office in Frankfurt until the early hours of the morning,  or on the road to trade shows, road shows,  presentations, interviews and many others.
Maureen has adopted Namibia Tourism has her family, and everyone within the Namibian Tourism Industry benefits from her selfless efforts.
Most recent effort & project, keeping Maureen up and running right this moment,  (and possibly the reason for her absence,...) :   The radio promotion “Elch und weg nach Namibia” with SWR3, one of Germany’s most popular and largest radio channels, which is in full swing and from 6 November to 4 December 2006, more than 3.2 Million listeners will get to know the destination Namibia through travel reports, trailers, interviews and music.
Under the leadership of Maureen,  the NTB Frankfurt tourism offices has just recently been listed among the top 5 tourism promotion offices worldwide through the Travel Star Awards, which took place in the Stravinski Auditorium of the Montreux Music & Convention Centre in Montreux, Switzerland on the 25th of October 2006.
The results of NTB Frankfurt’s pro-active involvement and solid investment in the Swiss market did not only reflect in the Annual Visitor’s Arrival Statistics but the fact that they made it among the Top 5 of the Travel Star Awards is a clear indication that their dedication towards this small but strong market has been recognised by the Swiss Travel Trade.
The Swiss jury took the marketing efforts of National Tourism Offices under the loop and they were tested in 5 categories (Feedback from Tour Operators, PR & Media work, Quality of Info kit, Website and Telephonic blind-test). Namibia received a total of 73 point out of 100 and they proudly share the 4th place with Finnland.
The contribution, dedication and commitment Maureen Posthuma has for tourism is immeasurable, and as a humble sign of appreciation, the industry decided to award her with the Tourism Personality of the Year Award 2006.