Beauty: Some tourist attractions that would sell Uganda
Letter of the day
SIR — My article ‘One CNN Advert is Not Enough for Our Image’ (The New Vision, October 26), drew criticism and support from many analysts in and out of the press.
Allow me to respond to the letter; Rukundo, CNN is Very Innovative (The New Vision November 4) by Rani R. Raad, vice-president CNN International Advertising Sales.
I appreciate the quality of CNN service worldwide. It is neither CNN nor the adverts that I was concerned about. My concern is rather, the quality of the product being advertised.
Fred Mukasa, in his letter, The CNN Programme is not in Vain (The New Vision, October 28) labelled me malicious and ignorant.
By malicious he meant I was unthankful of the Government’s campaign effort and initiative. This is false. All in the know understand the advantages of advertising, which include, increasing product sales from increased clientele, spreading the market scope of a product and providing information about the product to spur customer appeal. Mukasa informed us that the CNN advert is not a one-off but rather five such ads to run for six months and added that the Government supported similar initiatives in 2003 and 2004.
This is good and commendable. Never did I say this was a campaign in vain but I recommended that we could do more especially domestically.
In Africa, when you invite guests, you sweep the house, prepare porridge and roll out your best mats. Joseph Were in his article in The Monitor, noted that every branding campaign must focus on ABC (attributes of the product, behaviour of the consumer, and circumstances around the product). While we advertise our brand (which is Uganda) and invite foreign guests, we must, at the same time, boost the local tourism infrastructure that will host them.
This includes installing traffic lights and improving security along our major highways such as Entebbe Road, as this is will give a good first impression to the visitors, construction of good roads to tourist destinations such as Bwindi (home to 2/3 of the world’s remaining mountain gorillas), and supporting Wolfgang Thome (who has done a commendable job) in his effort to create public awareness and develop a domestic tourism culture.
Advertising on CNN, therefore, is one of the packages to enhance the tourism sector. The points as alluded to above, complement this initiative. This is what I meant by the initiative not being enough, but never did I say it was in vain. So, Mukasa, I love my country.
I took seven African Americans around this country in 2002 on a missionary trip to Kinkiizi, hosted by MP Kabushenga. I picked from that experience, one or two things about what is required to bolster tourism. It is what such tourists enjoyed while here that they said of Uganda on returning to Pasadena, California, that will brighten our foreign perspective even more.
Lastly, let us desist from labelling others ignorant before analysing the philosophy behind their submissions.
