Luanda - A group of sixteen Japanese tourists, on Thursday, in Luanda, exulted with joy over the natural charms and scenic beauty of Angola, as well as the potential and particularities of the country's culture and tradition.
The Japanese delegation, which has been on Angolan since the 12th of the current month, expressed this admiration during a specific reception session promoted by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and related institutions.
The group is in Angola for the first time, for eight days, and has already visited the province of Luanda, where they visited Cabo Island, the Military History Museum also known as São Miguel Fortress, the Iron Palace, the Luanda Bay, among other places, historical sites and monuments in the capital.
They also visited the Tundavala Rifts, Moon Viewpoint and Christ the King Statue in the province of Huíla, as well as Serra da Leba mountain, Arch Lake, the Dunes, the centuries-old Welwitschia Mirabilis plant, the desert and the beautiful beaches of Namibe.
For this Friday, a trip to Malanje is planned, essentially to get in touch with the Calandula Falls and the Punguandongo Rocks, according to Rebecca Barreiros, representative of Amazin Travel Angola, a travel agency co-coordinating the tourist itinerary.
"We have received groups of other nationalities and other countries, but this is the first time we have received Japanese tourists. And during the interaction they said they really liked what they saw in Angola. They are very demanding people in relation to the standard of quality of services", she highlighted.
She added that the tourists have a lot of knowledge, like to learn and are curious.
“But we are here to adjust to both cultures, and we believe there will be results”, she predicted.
The Japanese tour guide, Masashi Nakaya, said he was quite surprised by what he found in Angola, especially the quality of services provided in hotels and restaurants and even more admired by the fauna, flora and the entire ecosystem and natural tourist conditions.
He expressed that taking into account that he travels a lot around the world, he did not expect to find what he saw was in Angola, adding that honestly it exceeded their expectations, given that the preliminary idea about Angola is that they would find it very difficult to visit a country like that because it is in Africa.
He also recalled that 10 years ago they tried to make this trip, but without success due to the complexity of negotiating the visa.
In turn, the general director of the National Institute for Tourist Promotion, Lukeny Araújo, political reforms and economic stability in the country are starting to attract more tourists, certainly, to an Angola that is more open to the world, as a result of some measures taken recently.
"The main measure was to make it possible to grant visas for tourism. Today we have 98 countries that are visa-exempt, at no cost to tourists, which makes it more attractive for foreign citizens to come and visit Angola. And this has already had an impact its effect", he reported.
The official said that another strategy is the opening of new airports, as the country now has three certified international airports, namely the 4 de Fevereiro, the Dr. António Agostinho Neto and Benguela international airport, the last one that was recently opened.
According to Lukeny Araújo, they are starting to feel the arrival of more nationalities to visit and do tourism in Angola. Meanwhile, he mentioned that there are records of increased data on the flow of tourists visiting the country, which are published regularly.
"The private sector has also made efforts and has been making efforts to attract foreign tourists to Angola, and of course, we are very happy because the private sector is working, but the public is also supporting the implementation of policies", he admitted.
The general director of INFOTUR highlighted that the rate of international tourist arrivals has been growing, not only at airports, but also at ports, railways, among other land borders.
“I can say that in 2024 we had, for example, a number of more cruise ships ready, with arrivals in Angola compared to previous years and with more tourists. Naturally, this already gives us a greater number of tourists, compared to the tourist booster.
He concluded that the country is gradually increasing the number of tourist arrivals and that is the idea.
"Therefore, we want to make Angola more accessible, show the tourist potential of the entire country, in particular the provinces that have consolidated tourist bases. And that is almost all of them. Fortunately, we have a very rich country in this sense", concluded the general director.
ECC/MDS/MRA/jmc
