Airports and tourism in Mozambique

•Airport infrastructure is an important determinant of growth and development in developing countries like Mozambique.•In 2008, the Mozambique government launched its “Pro-Poor Tourism” strategy, aiming to reduce the poverty rate in the long run.•Airports permit tourists to access Mozambique.•The study uses cost function model to assess Mozambique's airports.•Efficiency analysis of Mozambique airports permits to ranking airports by efficiency and aids policy development.

This paper analyses airport efficiency in Mozambique from 2000 to 2012, estimating a cost function with random and fixed effects stochastic frontier models. A robustness test is undertaken with a Bayesian stochastic frontier model. The airports are ranked according to their technical efficiency (TE). The policy implication is that Mozambique should upgrade its managerial procedures to cope with the frontier of best practices.