Uganda as the rest of the world took part in celebrating world tourism day. The event organized by Gulu District Local Government alongside Uganda Tourism Board and Uganda Wildlife Authority brought about 12 tourism clusters from Westnile, Rwenzori, Ankole, Acholi, Karamoja, Bunyoro, Busoga among others to showcase their vaious tourism resources at the event. It was graced by Vice President.

Gulu town was boomed with excitement as people across the world and Uganda converged to celebrate National World Tourism Day at Pece Stadium. The theme this year is “Tourism and jobs: a better future for all”. The day is aimed at creating awareness of tourism power to drive inclusive development, create jobs and build the sustainable societies for the future.
The activities included tree planting at Kaunda stadium, blood donation at Pece stadium, secondary school tourism quiz at Layibi College and the tourism stakeholder engagement.

On direct contribution of Tourism in terms of contribution to employment in the economy, it was noted that the sector generated 229,000 jobs directly in 2017 (2.4% of total employment). This includes employment by hotels, travel agents, airlines and other passenger transportation services but excluding commuter services.

The president of Uganda through his message said that the overall goal for the government is to attract 4 million tourist arrivals and increase the contribution of tourism to GDP from Shillings 7.3 trillion to Shillings 14.68 trillion at the end of the year 2020.
To achieve this, he said government will continue to focus on Human-Wildlife Conflict; Community engagements; Resource Conservation; Research and Ecological monitoring and the general management of Uganda’s 10 National Parks and 12 Wildlife Reserves.