Ssekandi launches church leaders' tourism drive

Nov 05, 2016

Last year, Uganda earned 1.3billion shillings from tourism

Vice President Edward Kiwanuka Ssekandi addresses during summit at Imperial Royal Hotel. Photo by Juliet Kasirye

The Vice President Edward Kiwanuka Ssekandi has launched an initiative by church leaders which is aimed at promoting Uganda's domestic tourism. 

Under the banner of Global Leadership Summit, Born Again Pentecostal Churches have joined the tourism minister Godfrey Kiwanda to promote domestic tourism.

Kiwanda recently launched a campaign dubbed Tulambule which is aimed at sensitizing Ugandans to develop a culture of touring tourism sites in the country.

"This initiative is commendable. All of us have to promote our tourism. I appeal to more leaders to embrace this campaign and together we shall achieve the middle income status target," Ssekandi during the Global Leadership Summit on Friday at Imperial Royale Hotel.

Ssekandi said the Tulambule campaign is a good move which should be promoted by all leaders and citizens of Uganda.

"Last year, Uganda earned 1.3billion shillings from tourism. Tourism visits to Uganda have increased from 539,000 in 2006 to 1 million in 2015. We have to view tourism as one of our cash cows. As government, we want to promote domestic tourism in the next five years from 15million to 30.4million," Ssekandi explained.

Kiwanda argued that since tourism is one of the major sources of the country's revenue, it is risky to only depend on foreign tourists since those can easily be turned away by a mere occurrence of teargas on Kampala Road.

The tourism minister, Kiwanda, said, "You cannot tell story you have not experienced. That is why we launched Tulambule (Let's tour our country) so our citizens appreciate our tourism potential. I was impressed by the move by Global Leadership Summit to bring on board 1000 leaders to promote our tourism."  

 

The Uganda Tourism Board Executive Director Stephen Asiimwe said the have embarked on a drive to bring more people on board at all levels to promote Uganda's tourism.

"We are partnering with Global Leadership Summit to promote domestic tourism using influential leaders to travel in the countryside with their families to experience Uganda's tourism sites and to invest in the sector. We are encouraging religious leaders to help us on this campaign," Asiimwe explained.

Bishop Joshua Lwere, the overseer of the National Fellowship of Born Again Pentecostal Churches, said as religious leaders they have decided to popularize the Tulambule campaign.

"As religious leaders, including Muslim leaders, we want to join Uganda Tourism Board to promote tourism. We shall mobilize members in our churches to embrace domestic tourism. We have over 30,000 Pentecostal churches. We also want the visitors we get in our churches from abroad to be turned into tourists," Lwere elaborated.

Initiated by the US based Willow Creek Community Church and now embraced by 105 nations, the Summit in Uganda equips leaders with knowledge about servant leadership, work ethics, integrity, patriotism and good stewardship as core values that form the basis of Creating the Uganda We Want.

According Betty Byanyima, the Global Leadership Summit leadership Summit, will empower e 1000 leaders, 1000 tourism sector service providers and 1000 youth to promote Uganda's tourism. 

"Inspired by Tulambule Campaign, we intend to work with Uganda Tourism Board to promote Uganda as the number one tourism destination. We want to prepare 1000 youth to become peer ambassadors to promote tourism on the social media and other platforms," Byanyima explained. 

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});