Encourage, support domestic tourism

This should be encouraged. With growth in domestic tourism, the numbers of international tourists arriving are bound to increase even further and thus leading to economic development. 

On Wednesday, a new report by the Ministry of Tourism, Wildlife and Antiquities (MTWA) showed an improvement of tourist arrivals to 814,508 in 2022.

In 2019, Uganda received 1.5 million tourists but the numbers declined to 473,000 in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

International tourists stayed for at least seven nights which helped generate about Shs2.7 trillion.

Uganda’s major arrivals are from Africa at 67 percent, with Europe at 16 percent, North America at 9 percent, Middle East and Asia both at 2 percent in that order.

These positive statistics can only be attributed to intense marketing of ‘Brand Uganda’ that has been rolled out in Kenya, US, UK, Spain, Morocco, Tanzania and more importantly, locally.

Prior to the release of the report, two significant announcements were made by key stakeholders in the tourism industry.

The first was the launch of the seventh edition of the Pearl of Africa Tourism Expo (Poate) by the Uganda Tourism Board (UTB), a presentation that brings together tourism stakeholders and other service providers along the tourism value chain. 

According to UTB, Poate presents visitors and exhibitors a unique opportunity to meet new clients, network, and discuss business deals with potential regional and international buyers.

Next was the launch Explore West, an initiative by the MTWA aimed at promoting domestic tourism.

It is an ‘invitation to tourists- both domestic, regional and international to rediscover the magnificence of the Pearl.’

MTWA has in the past embarked on several initiatives to spur domestic tourism post-Covid 19.

According to Martin Mugarra, the state minister for Tourism , “Covid has taught us that in order to have a resilient tourism sector, domestic tourism is the way to go. We believe if this trend continues, we will be able to sustain the sector.”

By promoting domestic tourism, Ugandans have been the main drivers of recovery of visitation to national parks with an estimated 84,260 local visitors visiting national parks last year.

This should be encouraged. With growth in domestic tourism, the numbers of international tourists arriving are bound to increase even further and thus leading to economic development.

Our commitment to you

We pledge:

• To be accurate and fair in all we do.
• To be respectful to all in our pursuit of the truth.
• To refuse to accept any compensation beyond that provided by Monitor Publications Ltd. for what we do in our news gathering and decision-making.

Further, we ask that we be informed whenever you feel that we have fallen short in our attempt to keep these commitments.