Cabo Verde resumes tourism looking forward to boost economy

Thursday, November 12, 2020

Cabo Verde is known as “off the beaten path” – whatever that means. In reality, this tiny country of 10 islands has featured since the 15th century, when Portuguese sailors first stopped in the uninhabited archipelago.

In the last few decades, Cabo Verde, 600 kilometers off the west coast of Africa has come into the fore with regard to tourism, experiencing economic growth with few resources and little wealth. It has moved from a “least developed country” (LDC) status to “developing” in 2007, with a decrease in poverty, marking an annual growth rate of 5.7% in 2019.

“For Cabo Verde, 25% of the GDP is tourism, and we depend on it,” said Francisco Martins, the National Director for Tourism at the Ministry of Tourism and Transport.

Martins said, “Our situation was good and we ended 2019 with very good macroeconomic indicators. We were looking to tourism to drive the Cabo Verde economy while looking to spread tourism from the two main islands to others. But since COVID, from March nothing has happened, there has been no activity.”

Cabo Verde slowly started resuming tourism a few weeks ago, and is considering diversifying both its tourism sector and trade.

Having graduated from LDC more than a decade ago, EIF support to Cabo Verde has been phased out, along with other resources from development partners.

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