Ethiopia and Uganda to cooperate in promoting tourism

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Ethiopian Embassy in Kampala in partnership with the Uganda Tourism Board recently held a webinar titled “Discover why Ethiopia is the origin of so much,” to explore tourism opportunities and cooperation between Ethiopia and Uganda.

The online conference attracted senior government officials, tourism experts and operators, representatives of tourism association and owners of tourism companies from both countries.

Alemtsehay Meseret, Ethiopian Ambassador to Uganda said Ethiopia and Uganda have been committed to closely working in various areas of cooperation including tourism and that it is time to take it to a higher level.

She said the two countries have cooperation in culture and tourism sector given that they share multiple common cultural and tourism assets, philosophical views such as the promotion of Pan-Africanism, and being the source of the White and the Blue Nile respectively.

She added that the discussion will further enhance the cooperation through experience sharing and networking opportunities and will further explore complementary tourism assets and destinations of the two countries that would be combined in order to create a single regional tour package.

UTB CEO Lilly Ajarova said there’s a possible potential tourism partnership between the two countries in joint marketing and promotion; organising joint itineraries and familiarization trips between the two countries, tour operators, airlines partnerships in joint marketing initiatives in videos, and inflight magazines, exchange programs in hospitability industry, training and skill development in souvenir making.

Pearl Kakooza, President of Ugandan Tourism association emphasized the need to travel within Africa as the continent has huge tourism assets.

She suggested that the stakeholders of the two countries harness the shared and complementary tourism products in areas of culture and agro-tourism given that the countries are the origins of Arabica and Robusta coffees, and in faith-based tourism.