By Ben Ntale
On June 3, 2022, Christians will converge at Namugongo in Wakiso to celebrate the Uganda Martyrs Day.
Information from the Catholic Church shows that 2 million pilgrims or so participate in the Martyrs Day celebrations. Some of these people come from outside Uganda and are religious tourists.
Uganda is blessed in that it has many opportunities for promoting religious tourism. Currently, the majority of tourists that visit Uganda do so for eco-tourism purposes.
They visit our national parks, go gorilla or chimpanzee trekking, watch birds and others. This is good and in 2019, tourism helped Uganda earn $1.6 billion while employing over 600,000 people.
Due to the global Covid-19 travel restrictions, the Ugandan tourism sector was badly hit in 2020 and 2021.
Tourist numbers reduced and both government as well as the private sector lost revenue. Some workers in the tourism and travel sector also lost their jobs.
As the sector recovers from the Covid-19, it would be prudent for the country to promote religious tourism for both national and international tourists.
Some of the religious tourism sites that can be promoted not only include the Uganda Martyrs Shrines at Namugongo and other sites dedicated to various martyrs.
Some of these include a site in Birinzi, Masaka that is dedicated to Karooli (Charles) Lwanga, a site in Mityana that is dedicated to Noah Mawaggali, the Munyonyo Martyrs shrine and others.
Countries such as Rwanda, Palestine, Saudi Arabia and others are reaping big from religious tourism.
Ugandan should tap into her religious tourism potential as well.
The writer is a tourism and travel operator as well as member of the Inclusive Green Economy Network-East Africa (IGEN-EA)