The Centre for the Promotion of Imports from Developing Countries (CBI) has launched a three-day training programme from the 15th to the 17th of March 2023 with more than 50 Uganda-based tour operators as part of its Transforming the Ugandan Tourism Project (TUT-P, 2021 – 2026).
The CBI is part of the Netherlands Enterprise Agency of the Government of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
In the project to support the development of the tourism sector in Uganda, the training programme aims at strengthening the tour operators’ understanding of sustainability-aware target markets in Europe, building their capacity in terms of sustainable tourism and developing innovative tourism experiences for European target markets.
The training was officially opened by Ugandan Tourism Board’s (UTB) CEO Lilly Ajarova who underlined the importance of embracing sustainability not just as an add-on element to conventional tourism, but to make it centre stage to anything the country does related to tourism.
As reflected in Uganda’s new brand Explore Uganda – the Pearl of Africa Lilly mentioned the importance for Ugandan tourism actors to not just focus on tourists who come and visit Uganda but offer a journey for travellers with diverse opportunities to explore.
She noted that to do so, a constructive partnership between the public and private sectors is crucial, where the public sector enables, but the private sector drives tourism.
The TUT-P project will be formally launched in a ceremony on the 21st of March 2023.
It aims at improving the sustainability performance of tourism businesses in Uganda to trigger more sustainability-aware tourists to come to Uganda, stay longer and spend more, ultimately rendering Uganda not only a better place to visit but also a better place to visit for all its diverse population segments.