Kidepo’s nomination should motivate us

Worthwhile news filtered through early this week that Uganda’s Kidepo Valley National Park had been nominated for the category “Africa’s Leading National Park 2022” in the World Travel Awards scheduled for October 15.

Kidepo Valley National Park is competing with Central Kalahari Game Reserve (Botswana), Etosha National Park (Namibia), Kruger National Park (South Africa), Masai Mara National Reserve (Kenya) and Serengeti National Park (Tanzania).

 The leading travel industry figureheads and decision-makers from Africa and the Indian Ocean will attend the red-carpet gala reception in Kenya.

In the same awards, Uganda is nominated in the category “Africa’s Leading Destination” alongside 12 other African countries.  They include Botswana, Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, and Tanzania.

The World Travel Awards serve to acknowledge, reward and celebrate excellence across all sectors of the global travel and tourism industry.

For Kidepo Valley National Park to be nominated for this prestigious award and also Uganda being nominated under the category of “Africa’s leading destination”, is something to write home about.

For starters, our tourism sector was badly hit by Covid-19 for the past two years, thus such a nomination is a big stride towards recovery of the tourism sector.

Uganda lost about $1.6b in earnings from tourism as visitors stayed away due to the impact of Covid-19. Tourism is one of Uganda’s leading foreign exchange earners.

Secondly, the nomination is a reminder that we need to do more to boost our tourism sector and make it not only attractive to foreigners but local tourists as well. As Ugandans, we can contribute by touring our own national parks and recreation centres rather than opting for far, expensive destinations. It is time to build and support home.

If we toured and visited our country’s natural features we would be amazed by the very many unique and admirable cultures, attractive natural safaris and great hospitality that we have compared to many tourist destinations. No wonder, Winston Churchill referred to Uganda as the “Pearl of Africa”.

Winston Churchill in his book “My African Journey”  says: “For magnificence, for variety of form and colour, for profusion of brilliant life — bird, insect, reptile, beast-for vast scale-Uganda is truly the Pearl of Africa.”

It is also important to remember that touring our own country doesn’t only expand our knowledge and admiration of the motherland but also brings in revenue to coffers, accelerating social and economic development. Additionally, as a country we need to invest in the tourism sector  by constructing requisite infrastructure that will make it more attractive and also take good care of our biodiversity.  Let’s protect our natural resources as they contribute a lot to our wellbeing; our country’s good weather and tasty food which we miss when we travel to other countries.

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