Luanda – Eighty percent of the country's 468 travel and tourism agencies have been affected by the measures adopted to halt the spread of Covid-19 virus, according to the Secretary of State for Tourism, Hélder Marcelino.
Hélder Marcelino said so during his visit to some tourist undertaking in Luanda on Friday.
The official said that the Ministry of Tourism is concerned about the problems that affect the sector.
He mentioned the equipment supplying industry and the coordination with other sectors to mitigate issues, such as the high tourist packages performed in the country, as bearing the brunt of pandemic.
"Common problems are dealt with of the same way. But each institution has specific issues to deal with, such as those that still host guests in institutional quarantine, which had been forced to reduce costs," said the manager.
He also regretted the fact of many to have suspended their activity.
He added that others are paying risk subsidies to employees due to quarantined guests and, “added to this, in general, all are facing the problem of purchasing biosafety materials”.
In turn, the commercial director of the travel agency “Atlântida WTA Viagens”, Isabel Apolinário, who also joined the Friday visit, said the sector is having difficulties to acquire products for sale, due to the pandemic and particularly the cordon sanitaire in Luanda province.
She regretted, on the other hand, the reduced number of flights to and from Luanda, which, in her view, caused production to drop by 90 percent in a few months.
