Uganda Tourism Board (UTB) hosted a six-member team from Aviareps, Uganda’s Market Destination Representatives (MDRs) in the Middle East, to a meet and greet session at No. 5 Boutique hotel in Entebbe, Wakiso District.
The session came shortly after the team led by their Managing Director Mr Glenn Johnston, Mr Mehboob Rehman, Mr Gitesh Inamdar, Ms Swapna Shabeer, Mr Solomon Davis and Harue Oki concluded their five (5) days Familiarization trip to destinations of Bwindi Impenetrable Forest and Queen Elizabeth National parks to get acquainted with Uganda’s unique tourism offerings while they market the Country’s tourism products in the United Arab Emirates.
While in Bwindi, the team enjoyed a mountain gorilla trekking expedition, topography, tranquillity, flora and charming locals before en route to Queen Elizabeth national park where they immersed themselves in a variety of wildlife species including; tree-climbing lions, buffalos, elephants, Ugandan kob, hippopotamus, topi, waterbuck, giant forest hog, Nile crocodile, leopard, spotted hyena, chimpanzee impala, warthogs, mammals and a variety of the resident 600 birdlife species in the wilderness.
Commenting on the FAM trip, Aviareps Middle East Managing Director Mr Glenn Johnston lauded UTB for having allowed the team together with UAE’s crème de la crème travel agencies to come to explore Uganda.
He said, ‘’This FAM trip has been adventurous, super exciting and enriching as it comes at a great timing while the UAE is preparing for the June – September summer season, as well as the Arabian Travel Market (ATM). I am optimistic it will make a great impact on the travel agencies with us here while they include Uganda’s tourism products on their itineraries to sell to the UAE traveller market segment.
He added, ‘’The UAE and GCC region has been into lockdowns that halted travel as we are a community that travels so much and have traversed most destinations in the world except Uganda. And therefore, we believe Uganda presents another unique proposition that the Arabian travel market segment would prefer to travel to, an opportunity for the Country to leverage as a high-quality destination’’
He concluded, ‘’This trip also comes at a time we are to host the Arabian Travel Market (ATM), where we intend to showcase Uganda’s unique tourism products, create awareness, knowledge-seeking plus establish partnerships with partners within the GCC region’’.
UTB Senior Marketing Officer Daniel Irunga commended the team for having visited Uganda on a familiarization trip to get much more knowledge about the Country’s unique range of tourism offerings.
In his remarks, he said, ‘’The global tourism sector is recovering, and as such we need to be ready. The fam trips are part of the recovery marketing strategy developed by UTB in 2020’.
He added, ‘’Aviareps middle east six-member team visit to Uganda is part of the consolidated efforts to promote the newly launched Explore Uganda – The Pearl of Africa brand in the Gulf region states with synergies geared towards tapping onto the Arabic travel market segment as a source market for Uganda’s tourism.
Also, the team’s visit to Uganda comes at an opportune time when Uganda Tourism Board (UTB) is profiling the Entebbe, Kampala – Jinja City project to have the three destinations labelled top tourism places in the region and world at large.
According to the Uganda Bureau of Statistics, Tourist arrivals to Uganda from the middle east region between 2015 – 2019 were recorded at 13,391 in 2015, 13,668 in 2016, 13,395 in 2017, and 4,523 in 2019.
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