Rafiki Adventure Tours Uganda

International tourism expo set to show Uganda’s tourism potential!!

Birds rest near a crocodile on River Nile. Photos by peninah asiimwe/ Courtesy 

By Joseph Ssemutooke

In Summary

The expo, expected to boost the country’s tourism sector, will showcase Uganda’s tourism potential to both Ugandans and foreigners.
 inIn two weeks’ time, the 39th edition of the Africa Travel Association annual congress will kick off  at Speak Resort Munyonyo. It will run from November 11 to November 16. This will be the second time Uganda is hosting the biggest gathering of Africa’s tourism sector technocrats, the first having been in 1994. According to the chairperson of Uganda Tourism Board (UTB), James Tumusiime, UTB is to launch the first-ever Uganda International Tourism Expo as part of the occasion

Tumusiime says the expo is to be held between November 14 and 16, in conjunction with many other tourism stakeholders in the country.

Other partners include the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA), Uganda Wildlife Education Centre Uganda Tourism Association, the Uganda Museum, and Ngaali Uganda, among others. Tumusiime says UTB’s long-term aim is to make the expo annual, for purposes of marketing Uganda’s tourism potential further.

Andrew Welishe, one of the coordinators, says the event is to be held at the Uganda Museum, with visitors allowed in free of charge but having to meet a negligible fee to access some of the more specialised activities and services which will be at the event.

“We want stakeholders to show visitors from all over the world what Uganda has to offer to tourists,” Welishe says. “The different tour service providers will showcase what they have and at what prices.”
Welishe adds that the expo will showcase to Ugandans as much as to foreigners, so that Ugandans can understand that exploring the beauty of their country should not only be left to foreigners.

“We will have a lot of animals for the people to see. There will be exhibitions and competitions regarding the preparation of local cuisines. There will also be story-tellers from the different tribes in Uganda explaining how these tribes used to live as well as elders from the different tribes in the country, among others,” Welishe said. The top 10 Uganda tourist attractions to be showcased at the expo include the big five wild animals, traditional shelters, traditional art of war, traditional cuisines, music instruments and traditional dances, folk stories and colonial relics.

Traditional Shelters

Welishe explains that the purpose of traditional shelters will be to showcase the different types of architecture that Ugandans made before the coming of the White man. He says contrary to what some people have come to believe, there were actually many interesting architectural styles in the country.

The big five wild animals
Organizers say the African lion, African elephant, Cape buffalo, African leopard, and African rhinoceros will all be on show at the expo. These will be in addition to other must-see animals such as the hippopotamus, crocodile, and birds such as the ostrich, among others.

Music instruments and traditional dances
From the various types of stringed instruments, to the different types of pipes, to the different types of winged instruments, organisers say the expo will have an interminable array of traditional Ugandan music instruments. With skilled players actually making for a traditional music carnival.

Art of war

All sorts of traditional weapons from the different parts of the country will be showcased. Welishe says elders and other well-informed people from the different regions have been lined up to explain how exactly the different communities conducted war. He adds that there will actually be mock warfare to exhibit how exactly the weapons are used in battle.

Other tourist attractions to be showcased

Traditional Cuisines.
The organisers say there will be people who know the unadulterated traditional dishes of their respective communities, who will prepare and avail (at a small fee) the traditional dishes as they were prepared eons ago. And they say that actually the real traditional dishes are rather different from what we think them to be today.

Folk Stories. Mr Welishe says this will be for the evenings, and that the settings will be constructed to reflect how exactly it was like in the olden days –most of it taking place at bonfires.Colonial Relics. With the venue being the National Museum, organizers say the usual relics of national significance from the colonial period will be on show. He says, however, in addition to the ones resident at the museum, many relics are going to be ferried from different parts of the country for the expo.