President Museveni, has said government will continue to promote Uganda’s tourist attractions and reach out to more domestic and potential international tourists.
Last year, tourism sector registered increased performance as reflected in the visits to Uganda’s National Parks and other sites such as Uganda Wild Life Education Centre (Entebbe Zoo) and the Source of the Nile. Visitors to National Parks increased by 39,674 from 285,671 in 2017 to 325,345 in 2018.
Speaking during the State of the nation address, Museveni said his government will hire 7 Market Destination Representation (MDR) firms to aggressively promote Destination Uganda in the International, African and Domestic Markets and Participation in international tourism marketing exhibitions and regional marketing events to consolidate the gains so far realized in promoting Destination Uganda.
Museveni said government will attract 4 million tourist arrivals and increase the contribution of tourism to GDP from Shs 7.3 trillion to Shs 14.68 trillion at the end of the year 2020.
“Tourism has increasingly become important to Uganda’s economy. It is a driving force in propelling economic growth and continues to be the leading foreign exchange earner for Uganda generating US$1.45 billion foreign exchange earnings in 2017 compared to US$ 1.37 billion in 2016,” he said
“We will continue to focus on Human-Wildlife Conflict, Community engagements, Resource Conservation, Research and Ecological monitoring and the general management of Uganda’s 10 National Parks and 12 Wildlife Reserves,” he said at Serena conference center.
In terms of contribution to employment in the economy, he said tourism generated 229,000 jobs directly in 2017 (2.4 per cent of total employment). This includes employment by hotels, travel agents, airlines and other passenger transportation services.
