In downtown Xai-Xai, in southern Mozambique, rubble is multiplying, with a huge hotel by the beach that dates back to colonial times being the biggest source, despite remaining a symbol of the potential for tourism in the area and of what still needs to be done to promote the town as a destination.
“On our beach we have two empty rubble sites, which have all been abandoned since colonial times,” Ismael Suelmia, vice-president of the Hotel and Similar Industry Association of Gaza province (Asinhos), told Lusa. “I’m talking about practically more than a thousand jobs, at the very least, that we could have had until today.”
According to Suelmia, the province – and especially Xai-Xai – is still not taking advantage of its tourism potential, compared to neighbouring Inhambane, Mozambique’s main tourist destination. He cites a lack of promotion, effort to attract investment and even a lack of hotel beds.
“We have two wrecks that are standing still,” he said. “And yes, we have potential in terms of beaches, but we don’t have the capacity to absorb the tourists themselves, so there’s no attraction, we don’t have an attraction for tourists.”
The solution, he argues, involves tax incentives for entrepreneurs who want to set up in the province, and for example restoring these old and historic buildings. The fact is that on the city’s main beach alone, in addition to the wreck of the Hotel Xai-Xai – which stands vacant despite being at the entrance to the beach – there is another of its kind, the Hotel Chongoene, in the same state and also abandoned since the end of the colonial period, awaiting a solution.
“If there were incentives from the government to attract investors to what is our rubble [but] there has been nothing for over forty years,” says the head of Asinhos, which has around 150 members – tourism entrepreneurs from Gaza province.
The lack of accommodation and activities on offer are aspects that the association is calling attention to: “We have almost five or six lodges available [on the beach], which is not enough.
“When it comes to tourism, we’re really moving, as an old friend used to say, like a sick chameleon,” he went on. “We’re even having various development problems in this area.”
He cites also the lack of accessibility, given the 200 kilometres that separate the province from the capital.
“We have almost the entire road destroyed and that makes it impossible, in a way, for tourists to come here,” observes Suelmia, who also advocates reactivating the camping site that exists there, next to Xai-Xai beach, to boost that segment of tourism, which he ses as “small-scale tourism, at a low cost, but it is tourism.
“We have one of the best beaches in terms of safety,” he goes on. “It’s one of the advantages we have: having a beach for bathers that is spectacular.”
Ernesto Pita, manager of the Reef Resort on the same beach, where he employs 75 workers and has 20 houses with a maximum capacity for more than 150 people, says he is “sold out” at the momeny and has already recovered from the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, especially with tourists from South Africa, but also from Botswana, Tanzania and Europe, as well as from Mozambique itself.
Even so, he complains about the lack of other places for tourists to stay who are seeking out Xai-Xai’s near-virgin beaches.
“We need to look more at other things that tourists need to do while they’re here in Xai-Xai – that’s the most essential part,” he explains. “At the moment we’re only looking at the accommodation side and that’s not everything. We need to look at activities: Xai-Xai has no activities.”
He also complains about the rise in the cost of licences for recreational fishing – one of the few occupations that tourists can engage in here, apart from the beach and nature.
“It’s a niche that’s being lost,” he argues.
A few hundred metres away is the Go Wild Resort, with eight houses, five apartments and a privileged view of the almost wild beach, set amid green vegetation. Here there are 15 people working, and it’s also a full house.
“This summer we’ve started off well: we have teams of Spanish tourists coming, on excursions, so they stop here for the night,” Abraão Zandamela, the unit’s manager, tells Lusa, while lamenting: “We have no activities.
“Our beach has no activities,” he reiterates. They say it seems like Xai-Xai isn’t in Mozambique; Inhambane has more opportunities.”
The creation of itineraries to take tourists to learn about the province’s traditions or the development of packages to attract domestic tourists are among initiatives that he says are lacking in order to enable people to “enjoy” the “pearl” that is Xai-Xai.
“It’s quiet, peaceful,” he says of the area. “There’s no crime here… The people are also welcoming.
“We just need to attract more tourists and have more initiatives, more people with good hearts to invest,” he concludes.
