Uganda Travel
East Africa: Local Tourism Enters East Africa as Country Spreads Across
Continent
Zulu
induna
found 6 August 2007 at East
African Business Week (Kampala) by David Mugabe, Kampala
The South African tourism industry is joining the fray of
South African businesses entering Uganda, East Africa and the rest of Africa and
snapping up business opportunities.
A group comprising the South African tour and travel
operators visited Uganda recently with the mission of courting local Ugandan
travel operators to promote South African tourism products.
The South African team exhibited at the Sheraton Kampala
Hotel and unveiled the potential of a wider collaboration between tourism in
South Africa and East Africa.
"They will be responsible for selling us. We believe
we need to have a good relationship with their clients. From September it
becomes peak season and business is high," said Ms. Hulisani Thabela, trade
relations manager, South African Tourism.
Currently, Uganda tails the East African region in terms
of total tourists arrivals in South Africa with 10,620 arrivals in 2006. Kenya
leads the pack with 22,362 arrivals in 2006 and Tanzania follows with 12,738
arrivals.
But Uganda had the second highest growth rate in 2006 at
8.8% compared to the previous year while Kenya had 9.9% and Tanzania had 7.8%.
South Africa, the continent's biggest economy is tearing
into Africa. In Uganda, South African firms are filling the economy with mobile
telecommunication giants, MTN emerging among the biggest tax payers.
South African firms also include ENGEN, the petroleum
distributor, Shoprite and Game, the retail chain store, Multichoice (pay TV),
Standard Bank Investment Corporation (Stanbic bank, the largest bank in Uganda),
Century Bottling, SAB-Miller (controls nearly 50% of the local beer market)
while ESKOM co-manages the national power network. and South African Airways who
also partnered with the tour operators.
The entrance of South African tourism in trying to tap
into East Africa's latent potential shows the aggressive nature of their
businesses but also the region's still unexploited abilities.
South Africa will host the 2010 Word Cup, but the
country's tourism sector feels there are special and affordable packages that
the not so rich rest of Africa can savour from down south.
One of these packages is the Winter four night stay in
Johannesburg including airport transfer at only $134.
This relatively affordable holiday package was a much
fronted package at the Sheraton and it remains to be seen whether Ugandans and
East Africa will grab it up.
Thabela said Tourism Uganda, the official Uganda
government tourism agency and the South African Tourism Board are expected to
link up in the future for closer promotions of each country's strength and
opportunities in the tour and travel sector.
The recent exhibition in which provinces like KwaZulu-Natal
and Western Cape promoted their unique packages was mainly a drive by the South
African tourism private sector.
For the local tour operators in Uganda, they are expected
to cash in by getting intending local tourists travel to South Africa.
Yet Crime remains an unresolved business seriously facing
the tourism and general business sector in South Africa.
But officials say the reality and gravity of crime is not
lost on the tourism operators and efforts are being made to address the issue .
Local potential tourists should not worry. According to
Thabela, there is a special South African police unit tasked with surveiling the
areas that are frequented by tourists.
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