Uganda meets UAE travel trade

Since the epidemic, Uganda Tourism and its partners staged a first roadshow in Dubai. Over 70 agents from Dubai attended the event, which included onsite business-to-business meetings. Middle East is considered  an emerging market for Uganda hence its importance was stressed at the event.

Lily Ajarova,  Chief Executive Officer, Uganda Tourism Board

Uganda is known as the pearl of Africa because of the diversity that we have in this one small country in Africa which is well linked with the rest of Africa at the heart of Africa. The diversity of culture represents the whole of Africa which we are showcasing in Dubai, UAE. We are putting all the investment that we can to make sure we position the destination Uganda appropriately in this region. We offer what the market requires and give the market something new that they haven’t experienced before.  Uganda is a destination that can be visited 365 days a year due to the good weather throughout the year. The attractions ranges from the iconic experiences like tracking the mountain gorillas to climbing the highest mountain, to adventure activities like zip lining, water rafting, hiking, wind surfing, boat cruises, we have all that and besides that we have wild life experiences we also have ten national parks, ten wild life reserves that offer diversity of wild life from the big five we market ourselves as the big five plus two – the big five that everyone knows in addition to that we have the mountain gorillas and the champanzees, those are the great apes which are very iconic for every global traveler to tick off their bucket list.

Glenn Johnston, Vice President Middle East & Global Public Affairs – Aviareps

We have the great honour to represent the Uganda tourism board in the Middle East. As travel resumed, we are able to promote Uganda with the Middle East tourism industry to revive together and offer some amazing destinations and experiences. This is the first onsite event where Uganda has come over with 15 different co-participants and they were very excited to meet and network with the travel industry experts here. We have been able to have some excellent airline access with Emirates, flydubai, Air Arabia and coming into Dubai now also Uganda Airlines and also from Qatar with Qatar Airways so it is a very well accessible destination from all different areas in the GCC region and a lot of excitement from Uganda coming over here and seeing the Middle East and UAE in particular as a great opportunity to come into recovery with the industry here. We kicked off in Dubai and Abu Dhabi this month and the delegation will return in February and March with another branding relaunch as well, so now it is just the beginning of activities and we are hoping to work with the travel trade here with different fam trips also working with the media, influencers, also have them experience Uganda so that they are able to create demand for this unique destination that hopefully with the travel trade partners will be able to have packages available and get travelers ready to go to Uganda.

Eddy Kirya, Board Director, Uganda Tourism Board

The ME market, specifically the UAE is very important for tourism industry in Uganda because we consider it as one of the emerging markets as it has high spending power which enable us as a country to be able to meet our targets in terms of tourist arrivals to Uganda and we also have an increase in because revenue for tourism is one of the key resource bases that the government of Uganda relies upon so we are here basically to ensure that we have more visitors coming from the UAE. We have entire travel trade team today from Uganda 13 DMCs and 70 agents networking with B2B meetings with agents and at the end of the day we hope that the cooperation between the UAE travel agents and the Uganda DMCs will attract more visitors with their packages. Uganda is unique to the UAE travelers due to the weather as you don’t need airconditioning at all, and in terms of eco tourism Uganda is green.

Ahmed Essa Al Rais, Manager Government Relations and Luxury Travel – Al Rais Travel

I think it’s a very good opportunity for our market as UAE travelers like to explore new places and Uganda is one of the new places that are safe and has a lot of resorts that are more comfortable with the travelers from the UAE.

FACTFILE

Unique Points of Uganda

• Known as “The Pearl of Africa”
• Most secure and safe country in the Great Lakes region
• A country with biodiversity
• Pleasant weather around the year: average temperature 24 degrees Celsius
• Uganda is strategically located and linked to the heart of Africa
• Strong commitment by the government to promote tourism sector
• Accessible in all areas in the Middle East
• One of the fastest growing destinations for leisure

Why select Uganda ?

• Uganda has the largest mountain gorilla population in the world
• 54% of the 1100 mountain gorillas are in Uganda
• There are over 5000 chimpanzees
• Primates capital of the world

Birding Paradise

• Has 1069 bird species
• Home to over 50% of the entire bird population in Africa and 10% of the world.
• Uganda hosts Africa Birding Expo every Nov
• Queen Elizabeth National Park has over 605 species, the largest of any protected area in Africa
• Bwindi Impenetrable National Park was voted Africa’s number one birding site by the African bird club

Adventure

• White water rafting
• Mountaineering
• Biking
• Sport fishing
• Canoeing
• Water Sports
• Wind surfing
• Ziplining
• Nature walks