The government of Uganda is contemplating to increase its visa fees from USD 50 to USD 100 in an attempt to increase its revenue correction. While this is seen by politicians as a sure way of increasing government revenue and foreign exchange inflow into the country, it will have several impacts as below.

It will make Uganda an expensive tourism destination compared to other east African countries. Rwanda which has almost the same special tourist attractions charges USD60 for a visa and in such a case tourists may prefer visiting Rwanda instead of Uganda in order to reduce on the overall tour costs. The East African community was also planning to have one common or joint visa at USD100 in order to attract tourists to visit many countries while in East Africa but if Uganda decides to increase visa fees from USD 50 to USD100, this will also lead to an increment in the east African visa.

Tourism stake holders are very much concerned and they argue that instead, Uganda should be moving to reduce or scrap visa fees in order to increase on the number of tourists coming to Uganda. This would in turn or indirectly increase on foreign exchange inflow as tourists bring lots of dollars in Uganda compared to what the country will collect from visa fees.

Tourism has already suffered from the introduction of VAT and other challenges like Ebola and terror alerts so if the government goes on to increase visa fees, then it will be questioned as to whether if they know what they want in as far as tourism development is concerned.

A country with over 400 individuals of mountain gorillas in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park and Mgahinga National Park, source of the longest river in the whole world, Mountain Rwenzori and so many other tourist attractions such as chimpanzees and golden mokeys should surely look at promoting tourism to earn more forex other than looking at increasing visa fees.

We at Encounter Africa Safaris will keep you posted on this development and we will adjust accordingly in order to keep the price of all our tours affordable. Kindly contact us for advice, tours and any other information that you may require in order to prepare very well. We are a professional tour operator conducting tours in Uganda and Rwanda and our consultants will attend to you intime to enable you make a right decision.