In a bid to boost domestic tourism in Uganda, The State Minister for Tourism, Wildlife And Antiquities, Hon Martin Mugarra Bahinduka has joined with other stakeholders to launch an online marketplace for domestic and outbound trips around Uganda.

Tour plug according to the developers will ease access to tourism information in Uganda and will entirely be focused on African or local travellers.

The State Minister appreciated the developers and said this will ably increase the number of domestic tourists in the country.

Tourism has in Uganda been boosted by foreign travellers for years. However, the outbreak of Covid 19 turned the tables since no one was allowed to move. Before COVID-19, visitation to National Parks was on the rise hitting the 300,000 mark in 2018 and 2019. In 2020, however, visitors to National Parks dropped by -68.7% from 323,861 recorded in 2019.

In 2021, visitors to National Parks registered a recovery of -41.3% but showed a huge improvement from the year 2020. Visitors to National Parks doubled in 2022 from 190,000 in 2021 to 368,000 in 2022

The country is now recovering but this time with domestic travelers also increasing in number.

Hon. Mugarra appreciated the developers of Tour Plug, referring to regional tourists who come around and do not get well equipped with information. The state minister says this platform will guide a lot of tourists in reaching out to many tourism destinations.

Jafar Ajena the Chief Executive Officer, Tour plug noted that the main focus is African travellers. He added that a lot of people are misinformed on social media platforms and he believes this will be addressed in this newly created platform.

Precious Gumisiriza a co-founder of tour plug says the platform will create space for content creators. According to her content creation markets tourism in the nation and the creators should be recognized.

A lot of platforms have been targeting foreign tourists and according to Francis Makobi also a co-founder of Tour Plug, this has not encouraged Africans to travel.

Going forward, the ministry and its sector agencies intend to continue marketing and promoting domestic and international tourism, training and capacity building of tourism actors along the tourism value chain. Currently, the government allocated Shs 249 billion for promoting the tourism sector in the next financial year which started   July 1, 2023.

Luke Alinaitwe