Angola is trying to turn tourism from a largely untapped asset into a meaningful pillar of economic diversification. The latest figures point to progress, but also show the scale of the challenge. According to data presented by UN Tourism and Angola’s Ministry of Tourism in June, the country recorded 223,000 international arrivals in 2025, a 28% increase from the previous year and above the 217,000 recorded in 2019.
Angola’s tourism statistics vary across official and industry sources depending on how international arrivals and tourism activity are measured, so the latest figure is best understood within the specific UN Tourism series. Even so, the recovery is significant for an economy still heavily dependent on oil. Tourism offers a broader economic footprint than the capital-intensive petroleum sector, potentially supporting hotels, restaurants, transport operators, tour companies and smaller businesses across the country.
A growing policy bet
The government is now trying to turn that recovery into a larger economic sector. Under the National Tourism Development Plan, PLANATUR 2024–2027, Angola aims to double tourism revenues by 2027, create around 50,000 jobs and raise tourism’s contribution to GDP to 1.9%. The plan is backed by a broader investment and infrastructure program worth nearly $9.6 billion, according to an analysis presented by ITB Berlin.
The government’s public ambition is higher still. Tourism Minister Márcio de Jesus Lopes Daniel said in June that authorities want to increase the sector’s contribution from about 1.6% of GDP to more than 3% by 2027. That target is more aggressive than the 1.9% figure contained in PLANATUR and should therefore be treated as a ministerial ambition rather than the formal target of the national plan.
Angola’s longer-term strategy is even more ambitious, targeting 2 million annual visitors by 2050. That would require international arrivals to increase almost ninefold from the 2025 figure reported by UN Tourism.
Building the conditions for growth
The government is simultaneously trying to remove some of the structural barriers that have kept Angola outside Africa’s main tourism circuits. The Simplifica Turismo program is designed to reduce administrative complexity and make it easier for businesses to enter and operate in the sector.
Market access has also improved. Angola introduced visa-free tourist entry for citizens of 98 countries in 2023, while the new Dr. António Agostinho Neto International Airport in Luanda was designed to handle up to 15 million passengers a year.
The government has also put tourism-related infrastructure investment at around $3 billion through 2027, reflecting the scale of the effort to expand accommodation, transport links and tourism destinations. This is separate from the broader investment envelope associated with PLANATUR and should not be treated as an additional amount to be simply added to it.
The real test is economic impact
For Angola, however, visitor numbers are only one measure of success. The more important question is whether tourism can create a sufficiently broad domestic economic footprint to matter for diversification.
The country has major natural assets, from Kalandula Falls and the Tundavala escarpment to the headwaters of the Okavango basin and the southern desert landscapes. But turning those attractions into commercially viable destinations requires roads, domestic transport, accommodation, trained workers, reliable services and businesses capable of connecting local destinations to international demand.
That is where tourism can offer something the oil sector cannot easily replicate. A successful tourism industry can involve a much wider network of businesses and workers, allowing visitor spending to circulate through local economies rather than remaining concentrated in a small number of capital-intensive projects.
Angola’s current investment push is therefore not simply about attracting more tourists. It is an attempt to build the infrastructure and business environment needed to make tourism a more substantial part of the non-oil economy.
From recovery to diversification
The gap between 223,000 international arrivals in 2025 and the government’s 2 million annual visitor target for 2050 illustrates both the opportunity and the difficulty. Angola has demonstrated that international tourism can recover, but it has not yet demonstrated that it can sustain tourism at a scale large enough to materially change the structure of the economy.
That is why the next stage of the strategy matters more than the rebound itself. If Simplifica Turismo can reduce barriers to investment while infrastructure, air connectivity and destination development improve, tourism could become one of Angola’s more credible diversification channels.
The objective is not to replace oil. It is to build an additional source of foreign exchange, employment and private-sector activity that is less directly exposed to commodity-price cycles. For an economy that has spent decades relying on petroleum, turning tourism into a meaningful economic sector would be a modest shift in scale today — but potentially a significant shift in structure over time.
