Minister Mugarra underscores role of travel writing in promoting Uganda’s tourism

The State Minister for Tourism, Martin Mugarra has said that travel writing plays a crucial role in marketing Uganda and promoting its tourism.

“We need to tell the Ugandan story, dissect how cheap it is to travel so that we encourage more Ugandans to travel. It is our responsibility to market destination Uganda. Tourism should get into people’s ears as much as possible because when we are loud about it, we also get better budgets to further improve the industry,” Mugarra said.

The minister was on Friday speaking during the launch of the fourth edition of the  of the travel writing competition organized by Uganda Uncovered.

The launch was organized at Kampala Sheraton hotel.

Mugarra said Uganda has reaped big from being vocal about its tourism attraction, citing the growth of domestic tourism , following the onset of the Covid pandemic.

“We have had over one million Ugandans travelling in the last year from around 200,000 pre-covid. So clearly, being vocal about the tourism industry and marketing Uganda to the various categories of consumers is vital,” he said.

The minister pledged continued support to initiatives like the travel writing competition that add value to the country’s tourism sector.

According to Allen Namisango, the founder at  Uganda Uncovered, the organisers of the competition, they aim to shed light on budding tourism and travel writers as a way of promoting Uganda as a travel destination.

“We are looking at closing the information gap in relation to Uganda’s tourism. This competition is one of the ways of promoting creation of Ugandan content , more so written content. This competition helps us gather content from over 500 submissions from youths between 18 and 35 talking about tourism in a positive angle that promotes destination Uganda,” Namisango said.

“We want to interest more youths into the tourism sector but not only telling them to promote but also imparting travel writing skills so that they are able to earn from their passion.”

Namisango said this year’s theme is ‘harnessing Uganda’s tourism through conservation.”

“Following the recently concluded Pearl of Africa Tourism Expo which was on the theme of responsible tourism ,we realised one can’t do responsible tourism without conservation. We realized the biggest percentage of Uganda’s tourist attractions are wildlife and nature that need to be conserved even for future generations.”

She said they are to do activations in seven universities around Kampala.

At the same function, the first edition of Uganda Uncovered magazine was launched.

Namisango explained that previously, the stories were only being published on the Uganda Uncovered website but the magazine will be another platform where the stories will be put.

Rebecca Nyakairu, the public relations officer and corporate affairs manager for Uganda Publishing and Printing Corporation said such competitions help promote the country.

She said that UPPC seeks to revive the printing which will also contribute to the country’s tourism.

“We want to revive the printing school which was shut down after colonialists and when UPPC was handed to government of Uganda, it was put to a halt. With the school we want to conserve and promote the printing industry,” Nyakairu said.

“ We also wish to revive the printing museum to preserve and conserve the heritage of the printing industry in Uganda.  By taking part in such initiatives like the travel writing competition, we want to put a block on the tourism sector in the country.”