Mozambique: Washing cars on a street corner as a means to escape a life of crime
Number of visitors in festive season lower than forecast
10:18 CAT | 04 Jan 2018
In file CoM
Despite all attempts to boost tourism, the number of visitors to Mozambique during the 2017 festive season was much lower than expected.
Speaking at a Maputo press conference on Tuesday, the spokesperson for the National Immigration Service (SENAMI), Cira Fernandes, said the border posts handled 512,124 travellers between 13 December and 1 January.
This was only 71 per cent of the forecast total of about 725,000. It was also a decline of two per cent on the number of travellers handled in the same period of the 2016/17 festive season, which was 537,295.
When the figures are broken down, Fernandes said, the number of people entering the country increased by two per cent over the previous year’s figures, and the number leaving fell by eight per cent.
307,630 people entered Mozambique – the majority of whom (59 per cent – 192,762) were Mozambican citizens. These are mostly people living and working in neighbouring countries, including 25,492 Mozambicans who work on the South African mines.
As usual, the busiest border post was Ressano Garcia on the frontier between Mozambique and South Africa. Immigration officials at Ressano Garcia handled 308,628 travellers – less than two thirds of the target figure of half a million.
On the positive side, this was a five per cent increase on the number of travellers passing through Ressano Garcia in the 2016/17 festive season, which was 294,582. The vast majority of Mozambicans returning home for the Christmas and New Year holidays (189,818) used Ressano Garcia.
Source: AIM
Show comments
Also read
Leave a Reply
Be the First to Comment!
You must be logged in to post a comment.
You must be logged in to post a comment.