Annual Tourism Development Performance Review Report 2022 /2023-Launched.

KAMPALA- UGANDA

The Ministry of Tourism Wildlife and Antiquities has launched the Annual Tourism Development Performance Review Report for the year, 2022/2023.

In 2022, a total of 814,508 tourist arrivals were recorded, which is a 59% rise over 2021's total of 512,945 visitors. This represents a major rebound for Uganda's tourism industry. Even though this shows growth in the industry's post-pandemic recovery, the performance is only 53% of the arrivals in 2019.

Thanks to the complete re-opening of important tourism source markets like Europe, North America, Asia, China, Japan and Africa, the future for Uganda's tourism industry in 2023 and the years ahead appears positive.

88% of all foreign arrivals to Uganda in 2022 came from Africa, which remained the main source of visitors. The neighbouring countries of Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan and Tanzania continued to be the top tourism source markets. The United States, the United Kingdom, and particularly India and China ranked among the top 12 source markets.

In the same year, foreign visitor arrivals doubled to 963 million. Nonetheless, they were still 34% below 2019 levels.

 Europe and the Middle East had the most recovery, with the later region reaching 90% of pre-COVID-19 levels.

 Due to more stringent pandemic-related limitations, Africa recovered to 67% of the 2019 levels, while Asia was at its lowest, realizing only 28% of those levels. 

5.2 million tourists visited the East African Community (EAC) measuring up to 49.4% from 2021 but still 39.8% less than in 2019.

Reuniting with friends and family (38.2%) and business (15.5%) were the major motivations for visitors to Uganda in 2022; only 11.7% came for leisure and vacations. Different source markets were linked to various types of visits, with leisure and vacation travellers primarily coming from the US and the UK, while the East African Community (EAC) member States contributed more to meetings, conferences and business travel Uganda being one of the best MICE destinations.

In the same year, tourism contributed UGX 2.7 trillion(4.7% of GDP) to the global economy. This is a reflection of the economic activity produced by other Sectors including travel airlines, accommodation, businesses,restaurants and leisure industries, as well as the broader impacts of investments, the supply chain, and induced income. 

Over,  620,000 jobs, or 3.5% of all employment were related to the tourism Sector in 2022 which was a great stride.

In 2022, tourism-related revenue and foreign exchange earnings totalled to UGX 2.7 trillion, or USD 0.736 billion. This accounted for an important 41.4% of the country's service exports for the year and a sizeable 12.2% of all exports from the country.

The hotel and accommodation sub-sector attained occupancy rates of 46.9% in 2022, up from the low of 20.1% recorded in the year 2020. During the year 2022, the highest occupancy was in the Kampala region at 61.4%, while the Central and Western regions had the lowest occupancy rates at 33.8%.

Uganda's selected tourism sites including National Parks, the Source of the Nile, Museums and Uganda Wildlife Conservation Education Centre (UWEC), experienced a complete recovery in visitor numbers and indeed surpassed the 2019 levels. 

These sampled sites all together hosted a total of 1,060,354 visitors in 2022, indicating a substantial 15.2% growth compared to the year 2019 levels. Visitation to National Parks doubled in 2022, from 189,988 visitors in 2021 to 367,869 in 2022 - such huge number.

Together with a passionate disciplined populace that displays love for one's country and with increased funding for development, we can achieve higher from the tourism Industry. Explore Uganda,The Pearl of Africa!