Mozambique engages Botswana agents to boost tourism

Chakalisa Dube | Thursday September 25, 2014 17:10

Over the weekend Botswana travel consultants visited Maputo in a bid to build relations with hotels and tour operators in the country.

MTA marketing manager Jeremias Manussa said Mozambique would continue engaging tourism players in other countries to market the country.

“We are trying to resuscitate the country’s tourism to be ranked among the best in Africa. One way of doing it is building strong relationships with tourism players from other countries among them Botswana so that they market us to tourists,” he said.

He further said travel agents in Botswana deal with a lot of leisure and corporate tourists, adding that he wants them to market the country to potential investors.

Commercial and marketing manager at TD Hotels Diogo Gomes said they invited travel agents to show them what the country has to offer.

“We wanted to afford them an opportunity to see what exactly we offer so that when they market us, they are well accustomed with our products and also give us feedback as to where we should improve,” said Diogo Gomes, commercial and marketing manager at TD Hotels.

Manussa further said that the country is currently putting in place a few measures to position itself as a tourism destination of choice in the African continent.

“The government recently approved a strategy which will only allow tourism investment in some areas. It will be put into use soon. This is part of the country’s efforts to turn the country into a tourism powerhouse within the next decade,” he said.

The Mozambique government is also drawing a strategy devoted to creating a partnership between the private sector and government, in the development of the tourism sector. Tourism contributes slightly above five percent to Mozambique’s economy.

Manussa added that the country is also improving its infrastructure in a bid to position itself as one of the tourism hubs on the African continent. “We recently completed a new state-of-the-art airport in the Nampula province as part of the country’s plans to boost the tourism industry. Good infrastructure is critical if we are to take our tourism industry to another level in the country,” he said.

Mmegi witnessed that most roads around Maputo are being revamped following years of war and political instability. There is also a lot of construction of commercial buildings in and around Maputo and Manussa said the developments would also support tourism growth in the country.

Manussa also said the country has over 46,000 beds spread across hundreds of hotels around the country, which will support tourism growth in the country.

“The available accommodation can support millions of tourists coming into the country. I however acknowledge that our hotels will have to revamp some of the facilities within the next years. In fact some have already started renovations,” he said.

Mozambique receives approximately two million tourists annually. Manussa said the number could double in the next decade with vigorous marketing and improvement of infrastructure.