UWA, Tourism board attacked for promoting only Gorillas

President Museveni has attacked Uganda Tourism Board (UTB) and the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) for failing to effectively market Uganda abroad, saying it has become a major hindrance to the country’s tourism.

Mr. Musevenni, while speaking at the Presidential initiative on Tourism at State House Entebbe on Wednesday 25^th 2012 said UTB promotes specific animals like MountainGorillas leaving the beauty in parks.

“Some of these people do not put thinking in what they do. Promoting mountain Gorillas is good but what about the National Parks that show Uganda’s uniqueness?” he asked. He added: “Tourists would go to Kenya and Tanzania to see the Lions and buffaloes and only come here for mountain Gorillas.”

The president called the General Manager of UTB, Mr. Cuthbert Baguma, to explain why they only have promotions of mountain Gorillas but he was speechless.

  Drawing Board

Mrt Museveni argued the board to back to the drawing board and rethink marketing strategies that bring out Uganda’s uniqueness to tap in the tourism revenue like other countries.

“I think we are just sleeping and UTB is the sleepiest of all,” he said. The president lashed out at UWA for being ruthless while evicting people from National Parks.

He said people should be told that the revenue from tourism is better than that from farming and link them to park hotels to buy their crafts instead of ordering them off park land like they have no stake inUganda.

“I need to see those confused UWA people. Telling people to vacate for better revenue does not need much thinking,” he said.

He urged UWA officials to design proper user-friendly methods of ordering people to leave national parks than using a lot of force to evict them.

The Minister of Tourism, Prof. Ephraim Kamuntu, said the sector has great potential for accelerating the transformation of Uganda from a peasantry to a modern prosperous society that they should venture in. effort to get responses from UWA and UTB were futile as the two executive directors failed to pick Dailly Mornitor reported calls.

By: Bruce Amp

Uganda Uses Facebook and Twitter to promote Tourism

The ministry of tourism has launched a Champaign to promote tourism sector online.

The social media Champaign on Facebook and twitter, ‘dubbed My Uganda’, which was launched last week by tourism minister Ephraim Kamuntu, gives residents and International visitors an opportunity to share their experiences of the country.

Through My Uganda people can share impressions, experiences and memories of the country, its people, wildlife, scenary and culture through social media channels Facebook and twitter.

Contributors will load videos and photographs and publish their written reflections onto a dedicated face book page (www.facebook.com/MyUganda).

Those with Twitter accounts can use hashtag#myuganda.

“I hope that as we celebrated the 50^th anniversary of our Independence, Ugandans and our International friends will embrace My Uganda as a way in which we can tell the world about our great country. Through this Champaign we will show that Lonely Planet was correct to declare Uganda as the world’s best country to visit in 2012,” said the Minister.

“I am very proud to say that the very first video contribution has been submitted by the Prime Minister, Rt, Hon, Amama Mbabazi. In it he celebrates the ‘great, fascinating and captivating beauty’ of his Uganda and remarks that the country is ‘poised to take off’ in a way which will bring out a ‘new and prosperous nation,’ Prof. Kamuntu added. However 24 per cent of the total national budget revenue, is still one of the most poorly funded, receiving only 0.8 per cent of the total national budget that stands at Shs10 trillion.

More Tourists

Despite the financial constraints, the number of tourists coming into the country increased by 7 percent from 10 per cent in 2009/2010 to 17 per cent in 2010/2011.

The foreign exchange earnings from the sector for the year 2011/2012 increased to $662m(Shs1.6 trillion) up from the previous year’s $90m (229b).

In a recent cabinet meeting, the Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi said the problem should be addressed urgently.

“the December 2010 Retreat’s proposal to increase the resources for the Uganda Tourism Board has not been acted upon. Worse still, the sector received only Shs1.88b of an approved budget of Shs2.05b for the year,” Mr. Mbabazi said.

Tourism Ministry spokesperson Vivian Lyazi Mr. Lyazi recently said an improvement in the sector’s budget will ease marketing of Uganda’s natural endowment to virgin markets in the European countries like Spain and UK.

By: Bruce Amp