Uganda Tourism Board offers FUFA 200m in one year partnership

Uganda's football governing body, Federation of Ugands Football Association (FUFA) on Thursday, June 20, 2019 signed off a one year memorundum of understanding relative to a whooping shs. 200m in bid to support football and tourism development in destination Uganda with high target for tourism potential at the forthcoming AFCON 2019 campaign in Egypt.

The partnership is also focused on converging the huge numbers of local sports enthusiasts into actual tourists through the game of sport like the province sports challenge 'FUFA DRUM' that attracts a multitude of supporters from different parts of the country who in turn become local tourists in different areas they go to.

While addressing journalists earlier today at the FUFA head quarters, the CEO of Uganda Tourism Board ms. Lilly Ajarova highly emphasized the need for local tourism saying that each and everyone of us can be a tourist in our very own country. She says the partnership also highly focuses on tapping into the international tourism potential at the yet to be kicked off AFCON tournament in Egypt by branding Uganda as a top tourism destination in Africa.

"Uganda Cranes is the leading sports ambassador to the region, we want to open the brand Uganda to the massive sports audience where our national team is participating like the AFCON 2019 in Egypt.’’ Ajarova said.

In the UTB2019-20 strategic plan, focus is put mainly on sustainability and increasing the volume and value of tourism in Uganda.

She added that, "it’s the second time in a row that Uganda Cranes is participating in AFCON, a team from the tourism fraternity as well as a delegation of about 50 members of parliament will be there to give physical support and stand in solidarity and unity, we have organized events at the hotel close to the stadium where the Cranes will be playing and after the game, UTB will host the players, supporters and will showcase the beauty of Uganda in a foreign land.’’

66% of all tourists that come to Uganda are male and 60% of them fall into the age bracket of 20-39 years of age which is basically the football audience and this is a great opportunity to represent destination Uganda to the world.

The 2017-18 statistics indicate that 80% of Uganda’s tourism arrivals are from Africa with Rwanda and Kenya sharing 31% and 24% respectively, UN world tourism statistics in 2017 indicated that AFCON tourists from Africa to the rest of the world has been growing from 9.8m in 1990 to 42.1m in 2017.

According to UN world tourism report, the largest and majority of international travels takes place within travellers on regions and it’s one of the reasons why UTB strives to create awareness of local tourism potentials to the natives in Uganda.

8 of Africa’s biggest economy which is South Africa, Nigeria, Egypt, Algeria, Angola, Morocco, Kenya and Tanzania are the greatest tourism spenders because of their economic muscles and they will be in Egypt for AFCON therefore, its one of UTB’s target.

The first deputy FUFA president Mr. Justus Mugisha signed the memorandum of understanding on behalf of the federation of Uganda football Association, he said that ‘’we are excited to be making this partnership with UTB, you have made the right choice and the only thing you'll regret is making the agreement for just one year."

Mugisha added that, "there is nothing that brings high crowds in any given country like sports and football is by far one of them, if we work together we can't fail."

it should be noted that the AFCON tournament kicks off on June 21st with Uganda having their first game on Saturday against D.R Congo.

The tourism board has signed off a number of partnerships with sports bodies the last call being made with the Uganda Golf Union.