By Ndhaye Moses
The Uganda Tourism Board has unveiled the long-distance runner, Joshua Cheptegei as one of the country’s tourism ambassadors.
According to the Uganda tourism board chief executive director, Lilly Ajarova, the announcement is in line with the country’s goal of restarting tourism in Uganda after being greatly affected by the Coronavirus pandemic that hit the entire world.
She says the annual visitor arrivals had been projected to grow to 1.6 million in 2020 but this was greatly affected by the pandemic.
She says that between 2015 and 2019, Uganda’s visitor numbers grew by 19% from 1.27 million to 1.5 million and that on average, the numbers grew by 4% every year.
However, she says with the many restrictions on travels and fear of contracting the virus, the numbers gradually went down because of the pandemic.
She noted that in Uganda, they expect regional and intra-African visitors to pick up in the second half of 2021.
Last year, the 25- year- old Ugandan long-distance runner broke the long-standing 10,000 meter world record in Valencia.
