The Uganda Tourism Board (UTB) has unveiled long-distance runner, Joshua Cheptegei as the new country’s tourism ambassadors on a one year contract.
According to UTB CEO, Lilly Ajarova, the announcement was in line with their goal of restarting tourism in Uganda after being greatly affected by the Coronavirus pandemic that hit the entire world.
“Our annual visitor arrivals had been projected to grow to 1.6 million in 2020 but this was greatly affected by the pandemic,”Ajarova said during the function to unveil the 25-year old long distance runner held at the Uganda Golf Club in Kampala.
The UTB CEO said that between 2015 and 2019, Uganda’s visitor numbers grew by 19% from 1.27 million to 1.5 million and that on average, the numbers grew by 4% every year.
“The forex earnings from the visitors to Uganda grew by 22% from $1.31 billion to $1.6 billion in the same period.”
However, with the many restrictions on travels and fear of contracting the virus, the numbers gradually went down because of the pandemic.
“World over, there are mixed signals about the tourism industry’s recovery in this year. In Uganda we expect regional and intra-African visitors to pick up in the second half of 2021,”Ajarova said.
