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Minister of Tourism reports a steady recovery in the country’s tourism sector in 2022, with a 59% increase in tourist arrivals compared to 2021. Although progress is notable, it’s still at 53% of pre-pandemic levels.

The Minister of Tourism, Wildlife and Antiquities, Tom R. Butime has revealed that according to last year’s statistics, Uganda’s Tourism sector is on a steady path to full recovery after being hit by the negative effects of COVID-19 pandemic.

Speaking during the Annual Tourism Development Performance Review Conference at Hotel Africana Kampala, the Minister said that Uganda’s tourism witnessed a significant recovery in the year 2022 where a total of 814,508 tourist arrivals were recorded translating into a 59 per cent increase from the year 2021 where a total of 512,945 were recorded.

He added that while 59 per cent reflects positive progress in the sector’s post-pandemic comeback, the performance is only 53 per cent of the arrivals in the year 2019 before the pandemic.

“In 2022, the international tourist arrivals doubled to 963 million when compared to the year 2021, but remained 34 per cent below 2019 levels. Most of the recovery was recorded in the regions of Europe and the Middle East with the latter reaching 90 per cent of the pre-CoVID-19 levels. Africa recovered to 67 per cent and Asia was at the lowest, realizing only 28 per cent of the 2019 levels due to stricter pandemic-related restrictions,” he said.

Hon. Butime noted that the Financial Year 2022/23 was a recovery year in Uganda’s tourism industry that was greatly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. A total full opening up of the economy created an opportunity for Uganda to reposition itself as a global tourism destination.

“We will also report that over 85 per cent of the visitors to Uganda are from African countries especially our neighbours Kenya, Rwanda and South Sudan, with overseas visitors mainly coming from Asia, Europe and America. A larger proportion of tourists come to Uganda to visit friends and family, with leisure and business taking a smaller share. However, the fewer tourists that come from overseas mainly come for leisure holidays and business,” he noted.

He however revealed that although the sector is on a steady full recovery, there is still a huge untapped potential in overseas source markets. He asserted that there is still a need to invest more heavily in product development, marketing and promotion to attract more leisure and Meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions tourists (MICE tourists) with a longer stay and higher expenditure in the country.

“It is worth noting that each additional Leisure and holiday tourist we attract to Uganda will bring in at least Shs7 million and convincing them to spend an extra night here will earn us between USD 172 to USD 500. The biggest percentage of this expenditure by visitors is on accommodation, food and beverages and transport, in that order,” he revealed.

Revenue-wise, in 2022 the sector accumulated Shs2.7 trillion or USD 736 million, compared to only Shs1.88 trillion in 2021. However, this is still only half of the earnings generated in 2019.

Most visited place

According to the report, most of the tourists visited National Parks and this trend has been increasing tremendously over the last year, even surpassing 2019 levels. The same trend has been seen in visitation to the Uganda Wildlife Conservation Education Centre and the Uganda Museum.

According to the report, last year the highest occupancy of visitors in hotels was in the Kampala region at 61.4 per cent while the Central and Western regions had the lowest occupancy rates at 33.8 per cent of tourists.

Uganda’s selected tourist sites, including national parks, the Source of the Nile, Museums, and the Uganda Wildlife Conservation Education Centre (UWEC), experienced a complete recovery in visitor numbers and indeed surpassed the 2019 levels.

These sampled sites altogether, hosted a total of 1,060,354 visitors in 2022, indicating a substantial 15 .2 per cent growth compared to the year 2019 levels. Visitation to national parks doubled in 2022, from 189,988 visitors in 2021 to 367,869 in 2022 and such huge numbers have never been realized ever since the establishment of these tourist sites.