Uganda Tourism Board is looking to aggressively use social media to market Uganda abroad, executive director Stephen Asiimwe has said.
During the opening of the Pearl of Africa tourism expo at Sheraton hotel gardens on Friday, Asiimwe told The Observer that social media marketing has a lot of potential, especially if used alongside the work of international public relations firms the government has hired.
“We have the fastest growth of Twitter usage on the entire continent. We are shifting our focus more to the online platform. We are engaging fulltime media, but we are also putting more resources in the online marketing,” said Asiimwe, adding that the sector is targeting four million visitors with a view to earning Uganda at least $ 4 billion by 2020.
Among the exhibitors was Tunisian marketing consultant Imen Haddad, who is in Uganda to establish a hospitality business. She told us that Uganda’s tourism sector has big potentials to grow, but has not yet fully exploited marketing opportunities, including those on social media.
“Uganda is gifted with nature, but there is the need for stakeholders to explore the marketing potential that lies in the social media,” Haddad said.
“The most challenging thing I find here as a marketer is that people have their own way of doing things. Trends have changed, but in Uganda, it is always the same.”
Haddad urged the sector to target Uganda’s middle class as potential consumers of the country’s tourism services. She challenged tour operators to be innovative and always update their packages, logos and always consult depending on their target consumer.
Like Haddad, wildlife photographer Usha Harish said Uganda’s tourism needs more advertising and visibility: “Uganda has various attractions such as gorillas and primates. Many people, especially Indians, would like to come here and see them, but they come to Kenya more than they do to Uganda.”
Launching the expo, second deputy prime minister Kirunda Kivejinja said Uganda was undertaking major infrastructural developments to ensure proper movements of visitors to various parts of the country.
Themed Tourism is everyone’s business, the three-day expo ended last evening.
matsiko@observer.ug