MAPUTO– Despite all attempts to boost tourism, the number of visitors to Mozambique during the 2017 year-end festive season was much lower than expected, says spokesperson for the National Immigration Service (SENAMI), Cira Fernandes.
He told a media conference here Tuesday that the country’s border posts handled 512,124 travellers between Dec 13, 2017 and Jan 1this year. The number was only 71 per cent of the forecast of about 725,000 and represented a drop of two per cent on the 537,295 travellers handled in the same period of the 2016/17 festive season.
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.
A total of 307,630 people entered Mozambique, with the majority of them — 192,762 –being Mozambican citizens. These are mostly people living and working in neighbouring countries, including 25,492 Mozambicans who work in 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 forecast 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 used Ressano Garcia.
Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK