Mozambique: geography, history, and development

Tourism in Mozambique

Being a country that was known for nothing but war till the early 1990s after running for 16 years, Mozambique has made significant strides in terms of the investment in general and investment in tourism in particular. Mozambique, situated in the southern part of Africa is slowly emerging as a favorite destination of tourists who are drawn to the region by the tropical weather, rich culture, beautiful beaches and tourism site on top of the political stability that now exists within the country and region at large (Anna S & Ema B., 2011).

These factors aforementioned have worked to the advantage of the country in stabilizing and expanding the tourism industry within the country to experience a four times increase between 2004 and 2010. This sector is now considered one of the major sectors in the contribution to the GDP of the country with the hotels therein barely able to keep up with the tourist rush to the country.

The government in place has created conducive environment for the tourists by providing ease in entry and travelling through the country. There is a single entry visa that is give to tourists and is valid for two months yet can be renewed for another three months. There is also a multiple entry visa that goes for three months but can be extended to six months. These provisions make it easy for tourists to move within the country for an adequate period of time.

There are deliberate policy efforts that are also put in place to ensure the tourism industry within the country grows rapidly. The government of Mozambique created a separate Ministry of Tourism in 2001 that is charged solely with ensuring that the tourism sector has flourished to the greatest height within the region as well as adopting and operationalizing the tourism policy and implementation strategies as will be recommended over time. One of such was the 2003 Tourism Policy and Implementation Strategy which was geared toward ensuring setting of high level tourism objectives for the country, identification of the focal points of the intervention needed from the government, as well as the tactical guidelines on how to optimize and operationalize its competitive edge as a country (National Policy for Tourism, 2013). The creation of this ministry also came with the scrapping off of the 3% tourist tax that was levied on every hotel services that were offered.

There are also laws that govern the operations of the tourism industry, apart from the policies mentioned above. For instance the Tourism law of 2004 sets out the legislation that applies to tourism activities, the public sector activities that are directed towards promoting tourism, tourist numbers, the supply in the tourism sector as well as the consumer numbers in the sector.

There are also strategic plans that are covered under Strategic Plan for the Development of Tourism in Mozambique (SPDTM) that sets out to promote tourism as a part and parcel of the economic growth catalyst and job creation. It is estimated that in 2001, 7.5% of the total employments in the sub-Saharan Africa were from tourism and Mozambique is part of this region. The SPDTM intentionally incorporates the vision 2020 of the country that foresees Mozambique being the leader in the tourism industry in terms of dynamism, exotic nature and fame within the entire Africa with a view of hosting over 4 million tourists annually.