Ugee

UGANDA last year collected revenue amounting to $450m (about sh1trillion) from tourism, according to Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) statistics.

This amounted to about four percent of all Uganda’s services and goods that were produced within its boundaries last year.

UWA’s director of tourism and business services, Eunice Nyiramahoro, said Uganda is expected to continue seeing its tourism revenues go up.

She was on Thursday speaking at a breakfast meeting for Leadership and Conservation in Africa (LCA) at Hotel Africana.

The country has started getting more revenue from its estimated 380 endangered mountain gorillas.

By the late 1980, gorillas were of almost no tourism value to the nation. But last year, through tourism, they earned the country $225m (about sh500b).

There are about 700 surviving mountain gorillas in the world, threatened by disease, armed conflict and destruction of their habitat.

Records show that last year, about 842,000 tourists visited Uganda, and a majority of them visited the gorillas.

Gorilla tourism in Uganda alone employs about 5,000 people in tours and travel, while national tourism accounts for 17 percent of available job opportunities countrywide.

The first national LCA Chapter was established in March 2007 in Queen Elizabeth National Park.

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