Thursday, March 8, 2018
Ugandan Members of Parliament have asked the government to assign 20 billion Uganda shillings (5.6 million U.S. dollars) towards the marketing of tourism in the next financial year, to generate the revenue from the international markets.
According to recommendations drawn by the budget committee of Parliament and forwarded to the Executive, this money will be used to endorse the country’s tourism potential, especially on the international scene. It is because African countries are on hit list by the tourists from Russia, China, Japan and UK.
In allocating the money, the committee quoted last year’s budget statement which noted that “Uganda has a huge tourism potential, but is constrained by poor infrastructure to access tourism sites, inadequate skills in the hospitality industry and low visibility to attract national and international tourists”.
The chairperson of Uganda Tourism Board, Daudi Migereko said that the government plans to employ private tourism companies and the tourism leaders to promote the country’s tourist attractions on the international scene. He added that last year alone, three million people from across the world visited the Namugongo Martyrs Shrine.
Uganda is targeting tourist arrivals to increase to 4 million visitors per year, and double tourism earnings from the current 1.5 billion U.S. dollars to 2.7 billion U.S. dollars by 2020. A team of technocrats and other tourism players will also be heading to China on March 11 to promote tourism.
Tags: Uganda, Uganda shillings, Uganda Tourism, UK
