Visiting American Actor Terrence Howard Saturday tracked Chimpanzees in Kibale National Park as part of his exploration of Uganda’s tourist attractions.
The actor was pictured on the Chimpanzee trek in Bigodi accompanied by Uganda Tourism Board Chief Executive Officer, Lilly Ajarova, and officials from Uganda Wildlife Authority, among others.
He had earlier visited King Oyo Kabamba Iguru at Karuzika Palace in Fort Portal city where he was given a pet name.
Howard remarked “I was amazed by the interaction of the primates and its closeness to human behaviour. I implore people from all over the world, especially African Americans to come to Uganda and dive into the amazing touristic adventure for better understanding and knowledge of our footprints and deeper roots. People need to make their way to Uganda as it’s beautiful and worth visiting”.
He added, ‘’the experience I had was more like those songs that one would hear on Christmas that welcome you home. The nature walks through the park was covered by sweet sound of the birds and the creatures. And the movement of the chimps; felt like something I had deep within my DNA’’.
Minister Tumwebaze, lauded Terrence Howard and his team for making time to visit destination Uganda and appreciated the Uganda Tourism Board for diligently marketing the country.
“Our Guest Terrence Howard, successfully tracked chimpanzees this morning in the company of Madam Lilly Ajarova CEO Uganda Tourism Board in Kibale NP,” said Tumwebaze.
Tumwebaze thanked UWA for conserving and protecting the God-given gifts of nature (chimpanzees) “that truly stand out as our country’s signature marks”
He urged all Ugandans to collaboratively explore and market Uganda as their preferred tourist destination in their networks.
According to him, when the actor visits the park, the guides and the local community earn.
In her remarks, UTB CEO Lilly Ajarova said, ‘’We are optimistic about increasing international tourist numbers this year given the current surge of visitors here in Kibale National Park. The tourism industry is confident that the visitor numbers will increase back to pre-pandemic levels. Strategic interventions have been laid out to increase the tourism industry’s contribution to Uganda’s social-economic development.”
Tourism enthusiast Amos Wekesa said the move of having such high-profile celebrities and stars visit Uganda is of great value.
“Howard has about 2.8m followers on Facebook, 795k on Instagram and 256.3k on Twitter. We need to be hosting people like this every week in Uganda to showcase our beauty to their followers!,” Wekesa said.
“Our neighbours Rwanda, Tanzania and Kenya have these kinds of people every week visiting and showcasing their beauty. Lots of value over time comes with this kind of engagement for us all,” he added.
In 2021, Uganda received 7,386 tourists from the North America, approximately 1.44% of the total tourism arrivals. 512, 945 visitor arrivals were recorded during the period.