The Uganda Tourism Board – the government’s marketing and regulatory agency has refuted claims by the Uganda Tourism Association (UTA) – Uganda’s private tourism and hospitality sector that it has been blacklisted. gap in the planning and organization of an event – Pearl of Africa Brand, which will be launched by President Museveni at Kololo Independence Grounds on Friday.
UTA announced a boycott of the event saying that reasons such as lack of government involvement in decision-making and planning of the event, among others, make the private sector of tourism and hotel industry feels sidelined.
UTA President Herbert Byaruhanga said in a statement that the Association has never wished to disconnect from anything related to tourism organized by any government agency but was forced to boycott the UTB event in due to negligence.
“As the engines of the business, we feel left out of this whole process. It should be noted that our operators and other players spend millions of dollars across continents in search of tourists/customers,” Byaruhanga said.
In response, UTB rejected UTA’s claims calling them “false and inaccurate”.
“Uganda Tourism Board (UTB), the Ugandan government’s marketing and regulatory agency, has become aware of a press release from the new chairman of the Uganda Tourism Association, which, among other things, makes false and inaccurate statements regarding the development process and launch of the Ugandan tourism destination brand,” UTB said in a statement.
The Uganda Tourism Associations (UTA) January 19, 2022 statement, among other allegations, alleges that the association was not engaged and consulted in both the development of the brand and the organization of the event leading up to the launch.
“From the beginning, UTB was aware of the need to involve its stakeholders and indeed did everything possible to involve all stakeholders. The rebranding process has only just begun and we are committed to continuing to work with everyone to ensure that the intended benefits of the rebranding and all other planned interventions reach all stakeholders,” the statement reads in part. UTB statement.
UTB said it was shocked that UTA’s new leadership was trying, at the last minute, to “mislead” its members on one of the most strategic government interventions to revive and rebuild the tourism sector .
Apart from the alleged exclusion of UTA, Byaruhanga further said that the tourism and hospitality sector employs over 600,000 Ugandans, especially young people, but since the COVID-19 outbreak which has heavily affected the industry, the government has never offered a recovery plan or bailed out the sector. .
In response to the government’s failure to bail out the tourism industry which has been badly hit by the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, UTB said UTA’s concerns were “legitimate”.
“In addition to these false claims, however, the statement raises legitimate concerns about the negative impact the two-year-old Covid-19 pandemic has had on the sector.”
The UTB, however, added that although it fully appreciates the plight of the tourism sector and has already worked and continues to involve all public and private tourism stakeholders to find a lasting solution to the challenges in the sector, she also feared that the new UTA team was “deliberately dishonest to its members during the extensive consultation process that UTB has had with the various UTA leaders over the past two years that it took to develop and then prepare this new brand for launch”.