German PR firm kicks off tourism campaign for Uganda

PIC: The senior journalists from Germany, who are going to carry out Uganda tourism sector promotion campaign across Germany, Switzerland and Australia at Uganda media center on Thursday. Photo/ Edward Kayiwa

Government has received a delegation of four senior journalists from Germany, who are in the country to kick start the Uganda tourism sector promotion campaign, across Germany, Switzerland and Australia.

The journalists include Katrin Schreiter, from MADSACK media group, Margot Zeslawski, an editor at Focus magazine, Juta Lemcke, a writer for SRT news and Thomas Kruger a broadcast journalist from Flying Media.

According to tourism minister, Ephraim Kamuntu, the campaign is expected to increase investment in the tourism sector by at least 7.6% per annum, to more than sh2 trillion over the next ten years.

"Currently, investment in the tourism sector stands at about sh876.730b and we want to see it rise beyond expectation, through a rigorous campaign in Europe and North America," he said.

Kamuntu was speaking on the sidelines of a media briefing, with the German journalists, at the Uganda media center on Thursday.

He said that although the campaign will cost the country at least $0.5m (sh 1.682b) per annum, earnings from foreign visitors are key in growing the tourism sector and the country's Gross Domestic product (GDP).

"Annually, we receive about 10 thousand tourists from Germany who spend on average $500 (sh1.683m) per day, for the 10 days each of them spends in the country on average. This translates to $50m (sh 168.25b) per annum yet we are looking at tripling this number in the first four years of the campaign," he said.

In January 2016, the Uganda Tourism Board (UTB) said it had recruited three Public Relations firms to represent the country in source markets to increase the country's tourist arrivals.

KPRN is one of the three public relations firms that were hired to promote Uganda's increased focus on tourism to the global travel markets.

Stephen Asiimwe, the UTB executive director, said the journalists' visit is one of many, in which government will be partnering with media in specific markets, to promote knowledge and understanding of Uganda and its tourism attractions.

"These journalists came in as part of the KPRN strategy, to open up Uganda to the German speaking European countries, from which we currently receive many tourists every year," he said