Tourism experts and stakeholders in western Uganda have commended the Uganda Wildlife Authority-UWA and security agencies for the current measures to ensure safety and security in the parks.
This follows last week’s attack by suspected Allied Democratic Forces-ADF rebels in Queen Elizabeth National Park where two foreign tourists, David Barlow (UK) and Celia Geyer (South Africa) who were on their honeymoon, and their Ugandan tour guide Eric Alyai were killed on Tuesday evening, October 17, 2023.
The governments of the United Kingdom and South Africa have now instructed the Ugandan forensic team to halt conducting a postmortem examination on their two nationals, as investigations continue.
Mr. Mugisha Majid Amon, the proprietor San Diego Gorilla Safaris in Mbarara city says the Uganda Wildlife Authority-UWA and other security agencies have intensified operations, but more vigilance is needed.
Information from Uganda Tourism Board-UTB indicates that Uganda’s tourism sector is steadily recovering and the latest statistics indicate that Uganda got 814508 tourists in 2022 which earned the country $736m. In the financial year, 2018–2019 tourism earned Uganda’s GDP 5.6 trillion Ugandan shillings (US$1.60 billion or €1.3 billion as of Dec 2019) from 1.6 million tourists (World Bank 2019). After the COVID-19 lockdown, tourist arrivals in Uganda increased to 815,000 in 2022 from 513,000 in 2021.
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