World Tourism Day 2020
World Tourism Day is a day in tourism celebrated every year on the 27th of September to shine a light on several aspects of tourism in the globe. The celebration of tourism on this day is meant to improve on the tourism sector in many ways through facilitating of tourism awareness, advocacy, and promotion of tourism products and services among the local and international communities. The events of this day emphasize the importance of tourism to the social, cultural, political, and economic value of communities and nations at large.
Like in the other years, this year the world tourism day will still be celebrated on the 27th of September 2020 under the theme “Tourism and Rural Development”. The global events worldwide will focus on evaluating the tourism industry towards sustainable development goals as well as addressing the different tourism challenges outlined in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
This year the tourism industry, has been hit with a lot of challenges and setbacks because of the COVID19 pandemic that sent the world on a global lockdown which resulted in a stop on all tourism activities across the countries. The lockdown that has lasted between 4 to 6 months in different countries respectively has strongly affected the growth and development of the tourism industry.
The good news is though, that countries have started to reopen their tourism industries as lockdown measures in several countries are being eased; tourism industries are working towards recovering what has been lost and building stronger tourism industries. However because the coronavirus is still spreading, the industry is having to restart tourism activities under unique and strict conditions to ensure that the spread of the virus among tourists and tourism staff is minimized if not prevented.
That said the pandemic is not putting a stop to this year’s world tourism day celebrations, even with the setbacks the tourism industry is determined to celebrate the tourism day in one way or another, and most global events have been moved online so that people can still be a part of the celebrations and still be safe from the risk of catching the coronavirus.
The theme “Tourism and Rural Development” is mainly focusing on the development of rural communities as they place a big role in tourism and as the industry recovers and rebuilds there is need to put more emphasis on rural development.
In Uganda the pearl of Africa, the celebrations for this year’s world tourism day will take place in Fort Portal Town, Kabarole district commonly known as the Tourism City. The Sunday celebrations on the 27th September 2020 are going to be live on the Uganda Tourism Board social media platforms for all to join in and celebrate the day.
Because the theme is “tourism and rural development” the Uganda tourism board says this year’s tourism day events are going to aim at how the tourism industry can utilise the resources in Fort Portal for Ugandan tourism as it also contributes to the development of Fort Portal in terms of building infrastructure, empowering local communities, marketing the town among other things.
Fort Portal is known for beautiful landscapes, unique flora, warm and welcoming people and cultural sites that are a great resource to the tourism industry.
Leading up to Sunday, different events have taken place across the country championed by Uganda Tourism Board to gear up for the grand celebration on 27th September 2020 in Fort Portal. The events that have run from 20th September 2020 included but not limited to: – awareness conferences on tourism, highlighting different tourism sites through challenges, special talks with different players in the tourism industry among other events.
The different events have also been run virtually on several online platforms of Uganda Tourism Board and its partners using a wide range of hashtags that included #WTD2020 #FortPortalTourismCity #LoveUganda #TakeOnThePearl #StaySafe #StayHealthy #TubungireTooro #VisitUganda #WorldTourismDay2020.
