Published on 19/11/2024
Total of 8,121 tourism bookings were cancelled in two Mozambican provinces and around 200 million meticais (€2.9 million) have been lost due to the post-election demonstrations, different sources announced on Monday.
“There have been cancellations of around 8,000 bookings that had been made up to 30 November. We’re saying that tourist accommodation resorts have suffered huge losses as a result of these cancellations. There were huge losses totalling around 200 million meticais,” said Ludgero Gemo, provincial director of Culture and Tourism in Maputo, quoted yesterday by Televisão de Mozambique.
According to Gemo, the demonstrations, called by presidential candidate Venâncio Mondlane, also forced the cancellation of some festivals in Maputo, and the sector is currently trying to ‘reinvent itself’.
“We believe that in the next few days we’ll return to the movement we’ve usually seen in the province,” said Gemo.
In Inhambane province, also in southern Mozambique, at least 121 bookings had been cancelled by Saturday, according to the provincial director of culture and tourism, Emídio Nhantumbo.
“That number doesn’t cover all the tourist resorts we have along the 700 kilometres of coastline. There are resorts that haven’t reported cancellations, so it could be much more than that number,” said Nhantumbo, guaranteeing that Inhambane province is safe.
“Our province is safe, but it depends on other borders for tourists to get here (…) and sometimes there are some obstacles for tourists to move along the road,” Nhantumbo said.
Presidential candidate Venâncio Mondlane denies the victory of Daniel Chapo, supported by the Mozambique Liberation Front (Frelimo, in power), who won the 9 October elections with 70.67% of the vote, according to the results announced by the National Electoral Commission (CNE).
According to the CNE data, Mondlane came second with 20.32%, but the latter said he did not recognise the results, which still have to be validated and proclaimed by the Constitutional Council, which has no deadlines for this and is still analysing the dispute.
After street protests that brought the country to a standstill on 21, 24 and 25 October, Mondlane once again called on the public for a seven-day general strike from 31 October, with nationwide protests and a demonstration in Maputo on Thursday 7 November, which caused chaos in the capital, with several barricades, burning tyres and police firing shots and tear gas throughout the day to disperse them.
Venâncio Mondlane announced that the protests would continue until the electoral truth was restored.
