UGANDA USES FACE BOOK AND TWITTER TO PROMOTE TOURISM.

 Prof. Kamuntu with Ndere Troupe cultural dancers during the launch of My Uganda in Kampala recently.  

The sector is facing funding constraints which has limited efforts to market tourism.

The Ministry of Tourism has launched a campaign to promote the tourism sector online.

The social media campaign on Face book and Twitter, ‘dubbed My Uganda’, which was launched last week by the Tourism Minister Ephraim Kamuntu, gives residents and international visitors an opportunity to share their experiences of the country.

Through My Uganda people can share impressions, experiences and memories of the country, its people, wildlife, scenery and culture through social media channels face book and twitter.

Contributors will load videos and photographs and publish their written reflections onto a dedicated face book page (WWW.Facebook.com/My Uganda).
Those with twitter accounts can use hash tag #my Uganda.

“I hope that as we celebrate the 50th anniversary of our independence, Ugandans and our international friends will embrace My Uganda as a way in which we can tell the world about our great country. Through this campaign we will show that Lonely Planet was correct to declare Uganda as the world’s best country to visit in 2012,” said the minister.

 “I am very proud to say that the very first video contribution has been submitted by the Prime Minister, Rt. Hon. Amama Mbabazi. In it he celebrates the ‘great, fascinating and captivating beauty’ of his Uganda and remarks that the country is ‘poised to take off’ in a way which will bring about a ‘new and prosperous nation,’ Prof. Kamuntu added.

However, the sector, which contributes 24 per cent of the total national budget revenue, is still one of the most poorly funded, receiving only 0.8 per cent of the total national budget that stands at Shs10 trillion.

More tourists

Despite the financial constraints, the number of tourists coming into the country increased by seven per cent from 10 per cent in 2009/2010 to 17 per cent in 2010/2011.

The foreign exchange earnings from the sector for the year 2011/2012 increased to $662m (Shs1.6 trillion) up from the previous year’s $90m (Shs229b).

In a recent cabinet meeting, the Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi said the problem should be addressed urgently. “The December 2010 Retreat’s proposal to increase the resources for the Uganda Tourism Board has not been acted upon. Worse still, the sector received only Shs1.88b of an approved budget of Shs2.05b for the year,” Mr. Mbabazi said.

Tourism ministry spokesperson Vivian Lyazi recently said an improvement in the sector’s budget will ease marketing of Uganda’s natural endowment to virgin markets in the European countries like Spain and UK.