Uganda has the biggest tourism potential in Africa, says Akon

 

Renowned Senegalese-American musician, investor, and philanthropist Aliaune Damala Badara Thiam, popularly known as Akon has said his view about Uganda has greatly changed, courtesy of the four–day he has had.

 Akon, together with wife, Rozina Negusei made an excursion with visits to Queen Elizabeth National Park and Bwindi Impenetrable forest where he tracked gorillas.

The singer excitedly referred to himself as “the papa of Gorillas”.

Speaking after the two excursions, he said he was elated by the warm welcome according to him while in Uganda.

“I have had an amazing time. Oftentimes I don’t get time to visit the country and have fun. Thank you so much for the warm hospitality in the past few days. I thank president for opening the doors and for making me feel super welcome and super safe. I am leaving determined to do something amazing,” the singer said.

Nicknamed “the pearl of Africa”, Uganda is home to more than half the world’s population of endangered mountain gorillas and trekking to observe these gentle giants in Bwindi Impenetrable Forest is one of the world’s top bucket list travel activities.

 Uganda has 10 national parks where visitors can come face to face with “the fig Five + 2 ” including the lion, leopard, rhino, elephant, buffalo, chimpanzee and mountain gorilla as well as giraffe, zebra, hippopotamus, crocodile, and more than half of all bird species found in Africa.

Speaking about his experience, the Senegalese-American singer cum investor said Uganda was one of the five out of 10 countries that he had chosen for the construction of the Akon City as a tourist attraction but noted he has been wowed by the tourism potential the East African country has.

“I believe Uganda has the biggest tourism potential in the whole of Africa. Believe me, I have been everywhere in Africa and I haven’t seen the potential like this. I am super excited. When I look at the potential in a tourist point of view, I believe Uganda has one of the biggest potentials,” he said.

 “Just with my visit here, so much about Uganda that I never knew even existed. When you look at how Uganda and Ugandans have been promoted internationally, you will be scared to come to Uganda. They only tell you about the times of Idi Amin and all that happened then. They don’t tell you about what I saw. It is time to expose that. I want people to understand how beautiful Uganda is and the best way to do it is to build a city here.”

Posted by: Bruce Amp

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

UTB unveils world record holder Cheptegei as Uganda’s tourism ambassador

Image
  The Uganda Tourism Board has unveiled long-distance runner, Joshua Cheptegei as one of the country’s tourism ambassadors.   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
Read more

Wildlife: African painted dog returns to Uganda after 10 years of extinction

Image
  The African painted dog, also known as the hunting dog or African wild dog which has not been in Uganda for the last 10 years has returned to the country.   Speaking to the Jonathan Benaiah Podcast on Wednesday, Thomas Price, the Managing Director for Conservation Through Commercialisation centre(CTC) in Butambala revealed that they had imported a pair of the animals from South Africa. “I am happy to say we imported our first two African painted dogs from South Africa. They are the only African painted dogs in Uganda having got extinct 10 years ago,” Price said. Speaking about being extinct, Price, the Managing Director at the wildlife breeding centre in Butambala said there were some pockets of animals seen in Kidepo but noted there was no evidence to prove these were African painted dogs . “Currently they are as good as extinct because nobody has credible evidence of the animals. There were some rare sightings in Kidepo but we don’t know if they were the ones or t
Read more

Tourism companies to get one movement permit during lockdown

Image
  Uganda Tourism Board (UTB) has revealed that movement permits for the private sector tourism vehicles shall be restricted to one vehicle per company.   The revelation is made in reference to the presidential directives announced on 18th June, 2021 to curb the surge in COVID-19 cases in the country. Uganda is grappling with a second wave of the deadly Coronavirus that has so far claimed lives of 660 Ugandans. On Friday, President Yoweri Museveni announced several stringent measures to contain spread of the virus including ban on social gatherings, public transport among others but allowed movement of tourists across all destinations in the country. According to the statement released on 21st June 2021, by UTB Chief Executive Officer, Lily Ajarova, all stakeholders in the tourism sector with melted and compelling special movement needs shall henceforth submit their requests for movement permits to UTB. Ajarova says the requests shall then be forwarded to the Ministry o
Read more