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Tourism booming in Cape Verde

Tourism is growing rapidly in the archipelago of Cape Verde according to the latest official statistics...

New figures released by Cape Verde's National Statistics Institute (INE) indicate that tourist arrivals to the country are growing at an annual rate of 22 percent.  At this pace, the INE project that by 2015, 1 million tourists will be visiting the West African island nation every year.

A spokeswoman for the Cape Verde cabinet, Cristina Fontes Lima, told Afrol News:

"This means that the sector could start contributing with 30 percent to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in contrast to the current 10 percent."  She added that "continuing the dynamic development of the sector, it could employ 53,000 people, demonstrating that there will be more economic growth and more employment."

In its latest cabinet meeting, the Cape Verdean government concluded that current trends are "extremely positive", reports Afrol News.  The government are now planning for the development and diversification of the country's tourism sector across the archipelago.

Massive tourist development underway

Ms Fontes Lima said that the Cape Verde government has already approved US$300 million of investment projects in 2006 alone, a large number of which have been in the tourism sector.

The government's plan to create several Zones of Integrated Tourism Development (ZDTI) has already caused controversy, despite the fact that only one such zone has been set up since 2001. Indeed, Cape Verde has only sold around 1% of national land for tourism development since 1993.

However, planned developments on the islands of Boa Vista and Sal would take up 15 and 17 percent of the islands' territories respectively.  The Praia government is now proposing a national debate on future tourist development in Cape Verde.

Cape Verde is blessed with some stunning beaches and around 350 days of sunshine each year.  Direct flights to Cape Verde only take five and a half hours from London Gatwick and Manchester; a new route to Sal, the country's main island, from Dublin is due to commence from 21 December 2006.

SOURCE: Afrol News