*4.2.1 Brief summary of tourism in Angola*

With an area of 1,246,700 km2, tourism in Angola is also facing the current consequences of the oil crisis. Although the weight of tourism in GDP went from 0.6% in 2014 to 3.5% in 2017, demand has been slowing down for years (**Table 3**).

Of this figure for 2017, only 13% came to the country on holiday, while 87% were work and business. This leads to the fact that Angola is not yet a known destination for tourism. According to MINTUR Luanda, Benguela, Huila and Huambo are the provinces that received the most tourists.

On employment, the information is modest. According to MINTUR, general tourism employed an average of 200,000 workers between 2015 and 2017 (**Table 4**).


While this information, the development of ecotourism management in protected areas of Angola is in a phase of redefinition, due to the absence of strategic


## **Table 3.**

*Tourist issuers for Angola (2013 to 2017).*


#### **Table 4.**

*Change in employment in the national tourism sector.*


#### **Table 5.**

*Information on the hotel and restaurant sector.*

management mechanisms that link all actors, sectors and local resources and lack of investments. However, it was considered that 13% of the national territory are conservation areas, but any effort to ensure better control of these areas was left unchanged, by the government to reduce the ministerial of tourism and environment to secretaries, who could, from above, go articulating the management processes of the protected areas.

#### *4.2.2 Ecotourism management in Cuando Cubango*

In turn, Cuando Cubango the second largest province of Angola, after Moxico, with an area of 199,335 km2 and an estimated population of 535,838 inhabitants, which translates to 2.3 inhabitants per Km2 and to the total are about 59,537 families, an average of 9 people per dwelling, has 9 municipalities: Menongue (head), Cuchi, Cuito Cuanavale, Dírico, Rivungo, Mavinga, Kuangar, Calai and Nancova.

The province has a management structure that in parallel also coordinates the local ecotourism system. It functions with the power relationship of a governor appointed by the President of the Republic, at the top of the management; at the intermediate level it is helped by the offices (local administration, tourism, environment, culture, commerce, economic, migration, tax and fiscal) and at the base: there are the traditional leaders, social organizations, universities, churches and populations. Everyone is called upon to implement policies linked to tourism.

However, it is understood that management is not adequately structured; the relationships between the levels of hierarchy are not efficient and effective, a fact that disorients the objectives; it is evident the absence of a political attitude and knowledge of the dimension and opportunity that ecotourism reaches; structural political defects aggravate the social situation by failing to extract local problems; the width of the territory also makes it difficult to manage ecotourism and there is no knowledge exactly of the local critical factors, a situation that influences decision-making contrary to local needs.

As a result of this attitude, the province was in the last ten years the deforestation of thousands and thousands of trees that weakened the local ecological system. *The Management of Ecotourism as a Way of Contributing to the Development of Protected…*


*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.100333*

#### **Table 6.**

*Flow of tourists in Cuando Cubango.*

Likewise, we are witnessing the halting of all actions that at this time are considered essential for the implementation of ecotourism. In 2017, there were 13 hotels and similar units, including hostels, which in total had 194 rooms and 248 beds, of which two reference hotels in conservation areas. It currently had an increase of 53.8% % in the hotel offer. In this regard, the structure of prices per room and A + B (food and beverages), is characterized by high prices in the local currency (Kwanza). But with currencies, consumption will be made more accessible by the devaluation of 85.7% of the local currency in USD.

On the other hand, in the last four years, the arrival of tourists suffered a sharp reduction as an effect of the weak application of policies oriented to ecotourism (**Table 6**).

The socio-economic situation of the protected areas where the fauna and flora rest is chaotic. There are problems related to education, with the absence of school institutions and teachers. In fact, there are children outside the system, while another part of these children, depending on the precarious situation of their families, are sent by their parents to work in the agricultural fields, while the school year is going on. As of 2019, an estimated 132,984 pupils at different levels were estimated, including 100,524 (75.5%) children and 6,127 (4.6%) adults in literacy (Annex 2.1.6). of them 159 graduates in Tourism Management for 3 years.

The management of these areas can be affected by lack of hospital structures, where the only one is located more than 600 km from the main ecotourism centers, where there are no roads, a factor that can constitute a problem in the management. That is, 63% of these areas do not have sanitary facilities. Thus, some areas were adapted inappropriate facilities, where hospital services are provided.

Electricity as a basic budget for management, until July 2021, reached about 17,378 families, meaning a coverage capacity of 29% of the territory (Only the villages of Menongue, Cuito Cuanavale, Kuangar, Calai and Dirico have access to this service).

However, all headquarters in the nine municipalities have mobile technology service that varies from 3G to 4G by zones, telephony services and mobile Internet. In the villages, there are shortages of services, so you can travel up to 200 kilometers without having a network to communicate.

#### *4.2.3 Application of the methodology*

#### *4.2.3.1 Outcome of the instrument applied to host communities*

It took into account the communities located in areas of interest for ecotourism, natural and cultural sites of Cuando Cubango, where a survey guide with 6 multidimensional points was applied in the last three years.

27 community leaders from 6 municipalities were surveyed. All appointed by paternal transition or imposition of the local administration. 100% of these leaders


**Table 7.** *Problems of communities.*

are men, aged between 45 and 70 years and an average level of education of 5th grade, but most cannot read and write.

These communities have identical economic, socio-cultural and environmental features. Thus, the results were exhibited based on the methodology of Lira and Escudero [27] that propose two sets to describe them, nomadly: problems and potentialities. In this way, the difficulties arise first (**Table 7**).


It can also be assumed as endogenous wealth the ancestral knowledge, hospitable and the instructive values of these communities, as an intangible heritage, which guides the inhabitants and is very influential in moments of interaction with visitors.

### *4.2.4 Presentation of local potentialities*

The studies of the last 60 years have classified the region as possessing interesting and significant mineral resources, flora and fauna. Among them the well-known *Big Five* (lion, elephant, hippopotamus, buffalo and rhinoceros) made known to the world in 1961 by the renowned International Magazine of the National Geographic on Angola " um lugar*a descobrir*".

But when it was already believed that there was no natural heritage in the province because of the war, recent scientific studies proved otherwise. The

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.100333 The Management of Ecotourism as a Way of Contributing to the Development of Protected…*


## **Table 8.**

*Endogenous potentialities.*

Researches of [28–30] revealed that the end of the armed conflict and consequent Declaration of Peace and National Reconciliation, on April 4, 2002, evidenced an intact, guarded, true and genuine rest of the national flora and wildlife, with a unique biodiversity and powerful rivers.
