The BTL (Bolsa Turismo Lisboa) Travel Market is renowned as a platform for industry professionals to connect, forge partnerships, and explore innovations while promoting products and services in the tourism sector and generating business opportunities. Mozambique, positioned amidst the esteemed attendees, prepared to showcase its vibrant tourism products and forge strategic partnerships.
In an interview with Richard Baulene, the Director-General of INATUR (Mozambique’s tourist board), he highlighted the country’s target markets for outbound tourism-focusing on the Portuguese market.
Baulene emphasized Mozambique’s ongoing efforts to participate in tourism fairs and promote its offerings internationally, aiming to attract investors and tourists.
He said: “As you can see, Mozambique has decided to participate in the most important tourism fairs. We’ve been in Fitur in Spain in January. We are attending the BTL in Lisbon, and after finishing these meetings, we’re going to ITB in Germany. And we still have many other fairs in which we are going to participate. We aim to take Mozambique to show and sell the best of Mozambique so that investors can come and improve our hospitality industry.”
According to Baulene, Mozambique offers diverse tourism products and packages tailored for international markets.
“Mozambique is a country rich in tourism opportunities. Besides beaches and forests, we boast a vibrant culture. Three aspects of our culture have been recognized and integrated into UNESCO’s World Heritage List,” he added.
“We are endeavoring to incorporate all these elements into the packages we offer. If you visit our stand, you’ll find our promotional materials, brochures, and videos. We also have a website accessible via QR codes for more information. While this is how we present our offerings, the best way to experience it is undoubtedly to visit Mozambique yourself.”
Despite the challenges that Mozambique’s tourism sector faces, particularly in improving airlift to the country, Baulene mentioned ongoing efforts to collaborate with relevant authorities to address this issue and establish strategic connections within the African market.
He stated: “At this moment, we have flights from Maputo to every capital city of the provinces. Some of the capital cities have two or three flights a day, which means it’s easy to connect Maputo to Barra. It’s easy to fly from Maputo to every capital city in Mozambique. We’ve started with our national airline, Mozambique Airlines, with flights from Maputo to Lisbon, Lisbon to Maputo, sometimes twice a week. So, it’s easy to get to Maputo through Lisbon, and Johannesburg as well.”
“We have a strong market in Africa. We are going to be in Durban, South Africa, which is one of the biggest fairs of tourism in Africa. We are going to be there. We have signed a memorandum of understanding which we are planning lots of activities between Mozambique and Cape Verde, helping each other to promote these tourist destinations. And we are planning to do more memoranda with other countries because we know that if we coordinate the force as African continents, all countries can benefit from this. So we are strongly trying to work with other countries in the region and also in the rest of the continent,” he highlighted.
Despite the challenges that Mozambique’s tourism sector faces, particularly in improving airlift to the country, Baulene mentioned ongoing efforts to collaborate with relevant authorities to address this issue and establish strategic connections within the African market.
” With plans, our country aims to become one of the most relevant and important tourist destinations in Africa. So, what we will try to do in this position is to maintain in force action is the promotion of our country to attract more investments and visitors to our country to experience tourism in Mozambique,” he reiterated.
Mozambique is optimistic about welcoming four million tourists to the country, aiming for a recovery from the impacts of COVID-19 on its tourism industry.
“We seek to reach the four million tourist visits in our country, we had these numbers before COVID. However, we are recovering. Slowly, we are expected this year to get back to the top.”