Extensively after the country went through a series of brands of ensuring sustainable tourism growth, amongst the twists included “visit Uganda, Uganda gifted by nature and Uganda the Pearl of Africa”. Uganda Tourism Board (UTB) a government agency concerned with branding, promoting, and marketing Uganda as a tourism destination through tirelessly efforts has been working tirelessly to ensure that Uganda as a tourism destination is well packaged for explore to visit and revisiting tourists.
The board has launched a new tourism brand dubbed “Explore Uganda” which aimed at revamping the tourism sector from the pitch of COVID-19 Pandemic. After going through several types of research and consultations from several tourism key players, UTB found out that a visit is limited with what to do, but coming to explore gives one ample time and can stay longer exploring what the country presents.
The launch was graced by the president of Uganda His Excellency President Museveni who in his speech showed how Uganda has outstood among many African countries to fight the deadly corona pandemic. The president praise the African lifestyle which has helped limit the spread of the pandemic like it has happened in the western world.
Tourism is the country’s leading foreign exchange earner where the country earned US$1.2 billion from 1.6 visitors in 2019. The sector availed over 536,600 jobs in that same and the challenge surfaced at the awake of the Covid-19 pandemic which has pulled the statistic down.
The survey in 2019 by the Ministry of Tourism indicated that amongst 4,184 foreign visitors to Uganda, half of the visitors were returned visitors and over 60% of the visitors were saying they are most likely to return to Uganda.
Uganda hosts a great abundance of natural wonders which including roaring series of waterfalls, highly scenic natural landscapes which are crossed by the equator, accommodating over half of the world’s mountain gorillas in the wild, a list of the big five games, a banquet of wildlife, varying vegetation covers, world’s longest River Nile and many more.
While launching the new brand, Lil Ajarova, UTB executive officer, assured that the brand is to emphasize that tourists coming to explore the country stay for long exploring the precious and rare tourist attractions that are widely spread across the country.
Ms. Ajarova said, ‘Explore Uganda is an invitation to our tourists domestic, regional and international to rediscover the magnificence of [Uganda]. We are promising and inviting them to Explore Uganda for the adventure of a lifetime.”
She said that before the new brand there were a number of campaigns by various tourism entities in Uganda, most of which were built around the message “Visit Uganda”, something that the tourism board head said did not appropriately capture the uniqueness of Uganda’s attractions.
The minister of Tourism Tom Butime said “The launch of the Brand is part of a response to the recovery after this dreadful pandemic,”. “We are getting back into the market with a unified message and a clear promise and call to action.
“The launch of the Destination Brand is both vital to the restarting and rebuilding of the tourism sector as it provides a positive, recognizable and firm assurance of the beauty we radiate as a people and landscape of Uganda.”
