The Uganda Tourism Board (UTB) will from April 26-29 host one of Uganda’s biggest and signature tourism events, ‘The Pearl of Africa Tourism EXPO (POATE)’ 2023, at the Commonwealth Resort in Munyonyo.
For the last six years, Uganda Tourism Board has organised the expo to bring together both public and private sector stakeholders along the tourism value chain.
Lily Ajarova, the UTB Chief Executive Officer, says this has enabled the creation of business and networking opportunities for the tourism sector and greatly enhanced the economic development and social transformation of our country.
At this year’s expo, UTB envisages welcoming over 300 exhibitors. This includes tourism boards and associations from the region that will interact with our local suppliers for the benefit of tourism.
According to the World Tourism & Travel Council (WTTC), the global tourism sector is now recovered to 65% of the pre-pandemic arrivals. Full recovery of the sector is expected in 2023 and beyond.
Ajarova says this year’s Expo will not only point to Uganda’s Tourism recovery but also highlight to the world its readiness to fully host the tourism community once again.
She says at the Expo, they plan to host 100 African specialist tour operators (hosted buyers) in our core source markets of Africa (South Africa, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Egypt), Germany-speaking countries (Germany, Austria, Switzerland), United Kingdom, and Spain to explore Uganda – the Pearl of Africa and include the beautiful destination in their Africa itineraries in the next few months.
“The first group will come before the expo starts and will move around the country and we will further split this into smaller groups that will move to the different parts of the country. The second group will go after the expo as we allow them to explore the country,” she said.
Ajarova says that way, Uganda will receive more travellers and its associated benefits including increased tourism revenue and employment.
POATE 2023, will feature the emerging issues of Sustainability and Responsible tourism. It will be headlined by 5 tourism seminars on tourism investment, sustainability, MICE and innovation.
According to Clare Mugabi the Head of Marketing at UTB, the three days of the expo will be dedicated to Business-to-Business meetings with the participants and the last day dedicated to consumers.
There will also be side-line events for networking with exhibitors, tourism boards and associations, and familiarization trips within the country to create awarenessu of the destinations’ value proposition.
She said UTB has created a match-making digital portal for those who have registered as buyers and exhibitors to make appointments.
UTB also believes that this will also offer a Perfect opportunity to introduce the Pearl of Africa brand to all 5,000 participants and millions of Ugandans.
Uganda’s Tourism at A Glance
According to the Uganda Tourism Satellite Account 2023, released by the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) and the Ministry of Tourism, the sector registered 19.3% arrivals in Uganda for holidays, leisure and recreation, 40.9% for business tourism, 28.2% for VFR (Visiting Friends & Relatives) and 11.6% for other reasons.
Uganda received 1.486,876 travellers in 2019 and a revenue of UGX4.5 trillion. 67.7% of all arrivals originated from Africa; Europe (16.1%), America (9.8%), the Middle East (1.9%) and Asia (2.0%).
It is estimated that each of the delegates spent an average of 8.3 nights ad spent an average of USD$111 (UGX411,200) per day.
Ajarova says events such as POATE 2023 will continue to place the destination at the forefront of tourism promotion in the domestic, regional and international markets.
She says on the domestic tourism front, the expo will boost the destination’s domestic tourism activities and awareness of the attractions in Uganda.
Travellers in 2019 contributed UGX 2.9 trillion and an average of 23.5 million nights and spent UGX40,239 per day.
The final day at the expo is Consumer Day; Gates will be open for Ugandans that are interested in interacting with the POATE exhibitors.
And expose themselves to the tourism opportunities and attractions in Uganda and the rest of Africa. Entrance is UGX10,000 per person.
