The Uganda Tourism Board (UTB) is in talks with the Immigration Department about allowing international tourists to fly directly to tourism destinations.
According to the Uganda Tourism Board, which is tasked with marketing the country beyond its borders, the move will save tourists time and money while also making transit easier. Currently, all international arrivals must first land at Entebbe International Airport to be cleared to enter the country before continuing on to their destinations.
Lilly Ajarova, the chief executive Officer of the Uganda Tourism Board, said the new arrangement, if given the green light, will allow tourists to reach their destinations faster and more conveniently.
Ajarova continued by saying that she has heard complaints, particularly from local tour guides, who claim that the delays have cost them a lot of time and money.
“The trend in international travel has changed; now, people want to travel light to explore as much as they can in as little time. Our air connectivity faces many difficulties. Air connectivity is crucial if we are to make significant progress in growing the number of visitors to this nation and the revenue from tourism, according to Ajarova.
She claimed that even though Uganda has the largest population of mountain gorillas and the costs are lower, the country has not been able to generate much income from them due to the distances and poor roads needed to get to the tourist destinations.
“We are losing a lot of revenue from our Gorilla tracking. For all these years we have been earning from Gorilla tracking, we have never reached 100 percent occupancy, where we sell all our Gorilla permits. Our rates are half the rates of our competitors, and the major reason is that we don’t have direct flights to Bwindi or Kisoro. Everyone has to go through Entebbe before they can take local chartered flights,” she said.
According to data from the Uganda Civil Aviation Authority (UCAA), in 2019, the airport safely facilitated 32,798 aircraft movements. The number reduced to 14,421 in 2020 because of COVID-19 lockdown, increasing to 21,584 in 2021 and 28,985 aircraft movements in 2022.
Ajarova said that while the figures are steadily recovering, the immigration department must move out of its comfort zone to extend visitor clearance to other aerodromes so that tourists can directly fly to such destinations and get cleared there.
Herbert Byaruhanga, the chairperson of the Uganda Tourism Association, said they have been crying out to the government to open up facilities so that tourists can land anywhere in the country and get cleared at their points of entry, but not only at Entebbe Airport.
“Why do we have to struggle to get clearance? Make the whole of East Africa local and allow people to fly visitors from Kenya, Tanzania, or any other country in the region directly so that more numbers can come in,” he said.