UTB officially launches 6th Pearl of Africa Tourism Expo (POATE 2021) virtually

Saturday, April 3, 2021

In the midst of optimism and rays of hope about reviving tourism, the Uganda Tourism Board (UTB) officially launched the 6th Pearl of Africa Tourism Expo (POATE 2021), which is the first-ever virtual tourism expo.

POATE is a tourism exposition held annually by the Uganda Tourism Board (UTB). It assembles domestic, regional and international tour operators, travel agents, destination agencies and various players in the tourism trade for networking and facilitating tourism businesses.

The launch of POATE 2021, which will take place from 27th to 29th of April 2021 under the theme: “Restarting Tourism for Regional Economic Development” comes in the midst of a dipping of Covid-19 cases just as 350 million doses of the Covid-19 vaccine are being given worldwide, as per the World Health Organization.

The UTB CEO Lilly Ajarova said that holding a virtual expo is not only informed and influenced by the unique physical and logistical challenges caused by Covid-19 and its connected limitations, but is also due to UTB’s desire to make use of the internet to bring as many participants as possible on board.

“We have built, a specialized virtual meeting platform that shall facilitate one-on-one meetings, virtual speed networking sessions as well as live conference sessions for domestic, regional and international tourism players”, Ajarova said.

Participants for POATE 2021 will be scrutinized via a set of criteria that has been developed by the national organizing committee to make sure that they have the right caliber to showcase Destination Uganda’s offerings.

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