Africa-Press – Mozambique. Less than 20,000 tourists crossed Mozambique’s busiest land border at Ressano Garcia, during Holy Week, despite authorities predicting more than 45,000.
Ezequiel Nhumbate, head of the migratory sector at the Ressano Garcia border crossing in Moamba district, cites lack of money as the most probable reason for a fall in the number of miners returning to Mozambique from South Africa for Easter.
“It makes sense that there’s a reduction, considering that year after year we see fewer workers. For us, this is not a surprise. Some miners may have chosen to stay on the mines and some may yet arrive, considering that we have a special holiday and that the mines only reopen tomorrow. But so far, movement is relatively low-key,” the border official said.
At the beginning of 2022, Mohammed Abdula, president of the tourism department at the Confederation of Economic Associations of Mozambique, acknowledged that Covid-19 had cost the country’s tourism several million Euros, with a huge reduction in tourist numbers, and that restrictive measures to combat Covid-19 were good news for the sector.
The Institute of Tourism estimates that about 12,000 Mozambicans who work in hotels, restaurants or tourism-related activities lost their jobs during the pandemic.
Even before the pandemic, terrorism in Cabo Delgado had already driven away many tourists, prompting a government campaign to show tourists that not all parts of the province were affected and promoting alternative destinations.
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