Africa-Press – Mozambique. Tourism accounted for less than 1% of Mozambique’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2025, with the Government acknowledging the need for improvements in the sector in order to meet targets set for 2029.
According to provisional data from the budget execution report of the Ministry of Finance, the indicator for tourism’s contribution to GDP stood at 0.92% in 2025, representing “a 21% achievement against the annual target”, which was 4.42%.of the country’s GDP.
“This indicates a decline in the contribution of tourism to the economy,” it is acknowledged.
In 2024, according to the same document, tourism accounted for 4.02% of GDP, while the Government’s target for 2029 is 6%, meaning “the sector needs to make efforts to achieve an average annual growth rate above 1.25 percentage points in the coming years”.
Similarly, the growth rate indicator for accommodation, restaurants and similar services recorded a contraction of 0.06% in 2025, “significantly below the projected 8.24% growth for the period under analysis”.
“This performance raises concerns about the viability of long-term targets. To achieve the 11.20% target in 2029, the sector will need to implement deep structural reforms and adopt strong recovery strategies to reverse the current trend,” it states.
Tourist arrivals in Mozambique increased to 1.27 million visitors in 2025, up by almost 15% year-on-year. According to information provided by the Minister of Economy, Basílio Muhate, Mozambique had recorded 1.09 million tourists in 2024, an “indicator reflecting a consistent recovery and growing robustness of the sector”.
This growth, as previously reported by Lusa, took place in a year still heavily marked, from January to March, by post-election protests which, since October 2024, caused more than 400 deaths and the destruction of companies and public infrastructure.
The number of foreign tourists staying in hotels in Mozambique had more than tripled in five years, reaching almost 760,000 in 2024. According to the National Statistics Institute (INE) statistical yearbook for 2024, foreign guests in hotel establishments rose from 216,297 in 2020 to 757,458 in 2024, a period that includes legal changes exempting tourists from 29 countries from visa requirements.
