This year’s travel writing competition by Uganda Uncovered will help shed light on the importance of conservation tourism in the country, organisers have said.
Speaking during the launch at Kampala Sheraton Hotel, Allen Namisango, the founder at Uganda Uncovered, the organisers of the competition said this year’s theme is ‘harnessing Uganda’s tourism through conservation.’
“Following the recently concluded Pearl of Africa Tourism Expo which was on the theme of responsible tourism, we realised one can’t do responsible tourism without conservation. We realized the biggest percentage of Uganda’s tourist attractions are wildlife and nature that need to be conserved even for future generations,” Namisango said.
She noted that a travel writing competition is one of the ways to promote Uganda’s tourism.
“This competition helps us gather content from over 500 submissions from youths between 18 and 35 talking about tourism in a positive angle that promotes destination Uganda. We want to interest more youths into the tourism sector but not only telling them to promote but also imparting travel writing skills so that they are able to earn from their passion.”
The State Minister for Tourism, Martin Mugarra said such competitions help promote Uganda’s tourism sector.
“We need to tell the Ugandan story and dissect how cheap it is to travel so that we encourage more Ugandans to travel. It is our responsibility to market destination Uganda. Tourism should get into people’s ears as much as possible because when we are loud about it, we also get better budgets to further improve the industry,” Mugarra said.
Rebecca Nyakairu, the public relations officer and corporate affairs manager for Uganda Publishing and Printing Corporation said such competitions help promote the country.
She said that UPPC seeks to revive the printing which will also contribute to the country’s tourism.
“We want to revive the printing school which was shut down after colonialists and when UPPC was handed to the government of Uganda, it was put to a halt. With the school we want to conserve and promote the printing industry,” Nyakairu said.
“ We also wish to revive the printing museum to preserve and conserve the heritage of the printing industry in Uganda. By taking part in such initiatives like the travel writing competition, we want to put a block on the tourism sector in the country.”
