A total of 8,121 tourism bookings were cancelled in two provinces and around 200 million meticals (2.9 million euros) were lost due to the post-election demonstrations, different sources announced on Monday 18 November.
‘Around 8,000 reservations that had been made by 30 November were cancelled. We’re saying that the tourist accommodation resorts have suffered huge losses as a result of this cancellation. The losses totalled 200 million meticals,’ said Lugero Gemo, provincial director of Culture and Tourism in Maputo, quoted by Televisão de Moçambique.
According to him, the demonstrations, called by presidential candidate Venâncio Mondlane, also forced the cancellation of some festivals in Maputo, and the sector is now trying to ‘reinvent itself’.
‘We believe that in the next few days we’ll return to the movement we’ve usually seen in the province,’ he said.
In Inhambane, also in the south of the country, at least 121 bookings had been cancelled by Saturday, according to the local provincial tourism director. ‘This figure doesn’t cover all the tourist resorts we have along the 700 kilometres of coastline. There are resorts that haven’t reported cancellations, so the number could be much higher,’ said Emídio Nhantumbo, assuring that Inhambane province is safe.
‘Our province is safe, but it depends on other borders for tourists to get here and sometimes there are some obstacles for them to move along the road,’ he said.
Presidential candidate Venâncio Mondlane denies the victory of Daniel Chapo, supported by the ruling Mozambique Liberation Front (Frelimo), who won the 9 October elections with 70.67% of the vote, according to the results announced by the National Electoral Commission (CNE).
According to the body’s data, Mondlane came second with 20.32%, but the latter said it did not recognise the results, which still have to be validated and proclaimed by the Constitutional Council, which has no deadlines for this and is still analysing the dispute.
After street protests that brought the country to a standstill on 21, 24 and 25 October, Venâncio Mondlane once again called the population to a seven-day general strike from 31 October, with nationwide protests and a demonstration in Maputo on Thursday 7 November, which caused chaos in the capital, with several barricades, burning tyres and police firing shots and tear gas throughout the day to disperse them.
The presidential candidate announced that the protests would continue until the electoral truth was restored.
