The budget execution report revealed that Mozambique received nine cruise ships this year, with a total of 4,492 passengers from Asian and European countries. According to the document, the figures refer to the first nine months of the year, before the demonstrations called by Podemos presidential candidate Venâncio Mondlane.
‘2069 tourists disembarked from the boats and visited the tourist attractions and tasted the typical gastronomy,’ said the report.
According to the report, during the period in question, the tourism sector saw 157 businesses come into operation in the country, including 46 accommodation businesses, 83 catering and beverage businesses and 28 travel agencies.
Meanwhile, this week, Mozambican businesspeople warned of the cancellation of bookings and the reduction in tourist confidence as a result of the stoppages and demonstrations contesting the results of the general elections on 9 October.
‘This situation of demonstrations is bad for the country, for the economy and for tourism in particular, because bookings are being cancelled completely and the confidence index of tourists is affected,’ said Muhammad Abdullah, head of the Hotel, Restaurant and Tourism department at the Confederation of Economic Associations (CTA).
He said it was ‘premature to talk about damage figures in view of the demonstrations’, but said that marketing work would be needed to regain tourist confidence.
On Monday 11 November, Mondlane called for a new period of national demonstrations in Mozambique, for three days, starting on Wednesday, in all the provincial capitals, in protest at the electoral process.
‘We’re going to demonstrate at the borders, in the harbours and in the provincial capitals. In all 11 provincial capitals we are going to paralyse all activities so that they realise that the people are tired,’ Venâncio Mondlane appealed in a live broadcast on his official Facebook account.
The candidate emphasised that the fourth stage of demonstrations will have ‘several phases’. ‘For three days we will demonstrate. Then we’ll take a break. We’re asking the population of all the districts to come together. The protests must be extended to the country’s ports and borders and to the transport corridors linking these infrastructures. We call on lorry drivers to join in.’
Mozambican businesspeople estimated that 24.8 billion meticals (354 million euros) had been lost in the ten days of stoppages and demonstrations, and that 151 business units had been vandalised.
