Cape Verde wants to bring forward to this year the target of receiving 1.2 million tourists, previously scheduled for 2026, said this Tuesday, in parliament, the Minister of Tourism and Transport, Carlos Santos.
“After the milestone of one million tourists in 2023, the prospects are that we will bring forward the target set for 2026, that is, of reaching 1.2 million tourists this year”, he stated, on the first day of the May parliamentary session that runs until Friday.
Hotel establishments in Cape Verde broke the guest record in 2023, surpassing the total of one million: the year ended with 1,010,739 guests, according to the National Statistics Institute (INE).
The numbers also exceed pre-pandemic values: “compared to 2019, there was a 23.4% growth in the number of guests”.
The Government and private institutions predict that the sector (which represents a quarter of Cape Verde’s Gross Domestic Product) will continue to grow, driven, in part, by the start of flights from low-cost airlines, in October, to the island of Sal – which concentrates the vast majority of the archipelago’s tourist activities.
