Mozambique's Tourism Market Development As A Tourist Destination Analysis

Tourism is the movement of people to destinations away from their place of residence for any reason other than occupation and remunerated from within the country visited for a period of more than 24hours. It is one of the world's fastest growing industries and an important source of foreign exchange and employment for many developing countries. Since crossing many of the primary needs of the population, when harnessed it can be a key instrument to poverty alleviation and socioeconomic promotion and given to its sustained growth and resilience, can also contribute to facing the main global challenges of our societiesMozambique is a country with a great potential to become a tourist destination at regional and international levels which origins from the relevant characteristics of its natural resources, cultural and historic value. But, despite the country's tourism potential, the increase in investments and number of international tourist's arrivals as well as its proximity to South Africa which is one of the world's top tourist destinations, it still far from the expected and has little expression to the regional and international levels as a tourist destination.The purpose of this paper is to contribute to a greater understanding on tourism market in Mozambique as a tourist destination by analyzing the tourism market development from 2004 to 2009. The research study was based in literature review for theory and problem discussion and the data collected from the Mozambique's Tourism Ministry reports on tourism demand from 2005 to 2009.The study shows that high costs of tourism services for the local people and their small capacity of investment are the main factors for the slow development of domestic tourism. The tourism development in Mozambique is different when analyzing each province and type of tourists. Leisure and holidays is the main reason for visiting the country, followed by business and conference and, lastly visit relatives and friends. It also shows that it is important to create guidelines to brand destinations differently and design specific tourism plans, according to specific characteristics of the tourist zones create new marketing strategies which aim not only international tourists but also domestic tourists and specific policies for domestic tourism development create incentive programs which stimulate and encourage the use of local architecture design and materials by local and foreign investors; develop policies that stimulate and facilitate participation of the local communities in tourism projects, employment, training food furnishings and crafts and, complementary products.