Boa Vista
Cabo Verde's second beach tourism hub with sea turtle nesting sites and desert landscapes complementing Sal's offerings.
Boa Vista is Cabo Verde's second tourism island—the archipelago's easternmost and flattest landmass, where desert landscapes meet pristine beaches. Together with Sal, Boa Vista concentrates the 'sun, sea, and sand' tourism that drives national economic growth, though development began later and remains less intensive.
The island's tourism infrastructure expanded rapidly in the 2010s. All-inclusive resorts now line Chaves Beach and other coastal stretches. Direct European charter flights deliver tourists seeking beach vacations at prices competitive with Mediterranean destinations. The model mirrors Sal's but with marginally more undeveloped coastline.
Nature conservation provides differentiation. Boa Vista hosts significant sea turtle nesting populations, generating ecotourism activity. The island's interior deserts and dunes create landscape variety distinct from Sal's flatter terrain. These assets enable modest product diversification within the beach tourism framework.
The biological pattern is niche expansion: Boa Vista replicates Sal's tourism model while exploiting slightly different ecological characteristics—more space, more nature, newer infrastructure. This creates archipelago-level resilience (two tourism centers rather than one) while maintaining fundamental vulnerability to the European vacation market.