The Minister of State for Tourism, Wildlife and Antiquities, Hon Martin Mugarra Bahinduka has launched the 4th edition of the Travel Writing Competition that is being organized by Uganda Uncovered yearly with a focus on conservation. This happened on Friday 28th June at an event held at the Sheraton Hotel in Kampala.
While launching this year’s edition, Mugarra noted that many young people start up initiatives but they don’t put in the work to get results and grow it’s evident that the Uganda Uncovered team is dedicated to this cause, adding that he has seen a lot of young people with a huge potential to write and market Uganda.
“This gives me a lot of hope that the tourism industry has a greater future. Having young people participating in this competition means the industry has diversified platforms to push out content that tells the Ugandan story. I want to encourage you to travel, have the experiences and the fun but also write about it, tell the story of the beauty Uganda is endowed with,” he added.
The Minister also remarked that both the Uganda Tourism Board and the Ministry of Tourism are willing to support the competition.
“I have read through the magazine and I can say there are brains in tourism in this magazine. I want to thank UPPC (Uganda Printing and Publishing Corporation) for onboarding this initiative to give us even more copies,” he noted.
In addition, Hon Mugarra said that many Ugandans have issues with reading and therefore asked for other forms of content like video clips about these travel experiences uploaded on other media under the same brand so that they serve a wider audience.
“For us, we are there to support whenever we can because tourism should get into people’s ears as much as possible when we are loud about it, we also get better budgets to further improve the industry,” he noted.
Hon Mugarra also highlighted that there is an increase in domestic tourism numbers to over one million Ugandans traveling in the last year from around 200,000 pre-covid meaning that marketing Uganda to the various categories of consumers is vital.
“We need to tell the Ugandan story and dissect how cheap it is to travel so that we encourage more Ugandans to travel. It is our responsibility to market destination Uganda. I wish the competitors good luck and may the best writer win,” the minister concluded.
Allen Namisango, the team leader at Uganda Uncovered said that this year’s competition theme compliments responsible and sustainable tourism.
“When we talk about responsible tourism, there is no way we can leave out conservation because it makes up to 70% of what tourism thrives on. Therefore this year’s competition seeks to bring forth stories in that regard,” she added.
In addition, Namisango highlighted that the competition aims at bridging the information gap in the tourism industry through content produced by Ugandan talents, saying “The competition does not only look at rewarding the best travel writers but also photographers as well”.
During the same event, they also unveiled the Uganda Uncovered Magazine which is one of the platforms where articles and pictures of previous participants are published.
The Public and Corporate Affairs Manager at the Uganda Printing and Publishing Corporation (UPPC) Rebeccah Nyakairu pledged to continue supporting the Uganda Uncovered and the entire tourism sector by reviewing the printing museum to preserve the history and heritage of the industry.
About The Author
