KAMPALA, Uganda—The French Ambassador to Uganda H.E Stéphanie RIVOAL has said as part of the program line-up to celebrate the second edition of the France-Uganda friendship week due for 17th to 24th March 2018 in Kampala, her government will flow in a team of ten Journalist from France and Belgium to market Ugandan tourism in the two countries.
“Uganda is blessed with a lot of species ranging from plants to animals but I don’t think if Uganda is even aware of her tourism potential. We will bring in ten Journalists, blogs and travel agents from renowned media outlets in France and Belgium to tour the pearl of Africa and when they return home, they will be able to tell the tourism potential of Uganda to the rest of the world,” RIVOAL said.
She said that she has travelled several times to the North Eastern part of Uganda; that is; the Karamoja region and she has seen over 36 species of different plants.
“This area (Karamoja) is not that developed in terms of Ugandan tourism but I have travelled to this place on several occasions, I have seen a lot of tourism potential Karamoja could add on Uganda’s tourism sector unfortunately, it seems Uganda is not even aware about this,” Ambassador RIVOAL said.
She said they value the relationship France has had with Uganda over the years and would want this friendship strengthened further in all aspects for the benefit of the two peoples.
“We have worked with Uganda on different projects but we would like this friendship to be extended to cover all areas including tourism. I am glad the government of Uganda is focusing on tourism as well as one of the priority areas to diversify her economy and I think we will be able to help by promoting Uganda as a tourism destination in France, Belgium and the rest of Europe,”
The France-Uganda friendship week now in its second edition, will run from 17th to 24th March 2018 with a week long program line-up of activities where different activities in Fashion, Tourism, language, food, defense and security and sports will be celebrated.
In that regard, Monday 19th, March 2018, is a day dedicated to promote, create awareness and a shared concern for environment, eco-tourism, protection and conservation of wildlife through films, sights and sounds, photo exhibitions to discover the beauties of the two countries. This will be crowned with an Eductour by 10 French Journalists, bloggers and travel agents.
In addition, Ambassador RIVOAL advised that, if Uganda wants to realise more benefit from her tourism sector, she must embrace marketing and the aspect of promoting domestic tourism should be the emphasis because that is how France developed her tourism.
