EAST AFRICA TOURISM PLATFORM UGANDA’S TOURISM COMPETITIVENESS AND CONSTRAINTS
Nairobi, September 27, 2016
UGANDA’S TOURISM COMPETITIVENESS AND CONSTRAINTS
As East Africa Tourism Platform, since our inception in 2014, we have been promoting the interest and participation of the private sector in the East African Community integration process. We have been working closely with the Ministries in charge of Tourism, Wildlife, Trade and Transport; EAC Secretariat and East African Business Council. Our vision is to create a vibrant, competitive and diverse single tourism destination; offering exceptional products and services through marketing, advocacy, product development, skills development, research, information sharing and infrastructure development. In marketing East Africa, we have been coordinating Joint Tourism Marketing Committee’s activities. So far, we have implemented a number of activities with the aim of: • Educating EAC residents on their tourism products. • Creating awareness amongst EAC nationals on the use of IDs/Students/Voters cards as travel documents and the benefits of regional integration. • Promoting inter and intra-regional tourism. We are proud of the attained achievements especially from our advocacy lobbying efforts. Early last month, our Ugandan counterparts held a Presidential Investors Round Table (PIRT) meeting with their Prime Minister and discussed issues affecting our sector. Our congratulations are in order. Among the issues discussed include: • Friendly tax regime such as VAT zero-rating of hospitality facilities. • Reduction of visa fees • Friendly bank interest rates. • Construction of tourism roads • Establishment of national carrier • Marketing and improving Uganda’s image abroad. • Development of human resources
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During the meeting some successes were noted. These are: • Reduction of Visa fees from $100 to US$ 50 and even the operationalization of the online visa application system. These two measures demonstrating efforts of the three partner states (Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda) in harmonising some of their national policies to the regional vision: One Single Destination. • Construction of tourism roads is on-going. However, challenges still lie ahead including: • Development of human resources and subsequent addressing of skill shortage. • Expansion of national airport and improve quality of services. Our future is promising with opportunities galore. • As EATP, we strongly urge our partners to lobby our governments to show ownership of the idea of ‘One Single Destination’, open skies, harmonize pricing, tax and policy regimes, reduce visa fees, ease visa- application procedures and allocate adequate budgets to market domestic and regional tourism. • Our fight for open skies policy is still on-course. With open skies, competition will be intense, fares will reduce, more people will travel, more business partnerships will be created, ultimately leading to a single, competitive and strong Destination East Africa.
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EAST AFRICA TOURISM PLATFORM Kenya Tourism Federation – Secretariat| KWS Headquarters – Langata Road, P.O. Box 15013-00509, Nairobi| Tel: +254208001000/3/1| Mobile: +254724624538 Facebook: East Africa Tourism Platform| Twitter: @TourismEA| Skype: tourismea