The years 2025 and 2027 are special in the sports calendar of this country. Uganda, together with Kenya and Tanzania, will host two international football tournaments – the CAF TotalEnergies African Nations Championship (CHAN) 2025, a continental tournament for locally-based players, and the African Cup of Nations 2027.
For football lovers in the region, the tournaments are a wish fulfilled. Even when the matches are still many months away, one can already picture renditions of national anthems and shirtless fans nodding to songs of national pride and paint their faces with all sorts of colours. Yet, these are more than just football tournaments. If we prepare well, opportunities for everyone aplenty – from a tomatoes’ farmer in Kasese to an Irish potatoes’ trader in Kabale and a taxi driver at Entebbe airport. And nowhere this opportunity should be resoundingly tapped like in the country’s tourism sector.
The global media is expected to camp here to provide coverage of the tournaments on the pitch and off the pitch, delving into culture, ways of life, and investment opportunities for whomever cares to listen. The New York Times’ popular sports newsletter, The Athletic, has described AFCON as a “seed of unbridled footballing joy” while the BBC has noted that “improved transport links [in preparation for these tournaments] boost tourism in the future.”
See, the global sports tourism market is already hot with annualised growth of 12% between 2021 and 2027, according to the 2023 Football and Tourism report. The economic impact of this is a whopping $1.7tn, and football tourism is expected to account for 40% of the industry’s economic potential.
These remain but just meaningless numbers if we cannot forcefully claim our share. In both the CHAN 2025 and AFCON 2027, among the hosts, Uganda remains the underdog in terms of which country a tourist would choose to spend an extra dollar away from football. Both Kenya and Tanzania are already giants in the tourism field in the region – both topping more than 2.5million international visitors in 2023 and earnings of $2.7bn and $3.5bn respectively. Uganda’s performance of just over a million international visitors in 2023 and just over $1bn in earnings is clearly subpar.
This means that with all the sweat put in to earn the rights to host these tournaments with our neighbours, nearly all tourism benefits may end up being taken if we don’t fight harder. The renovation of the Mandela National Stadium and constructions of Akii Bua Stadium in Lira and Hoima City Stadium in Hoima shows there is an effort to prepare for the tournaments. Beyond stadiums, one struggles to see what we are doing to tap tourism opportunities.
What should the country do?
First, it will be crucial to complete infrastructure projects on time as last-minute rushed projects give bad impression about our ability to handle tournaments of such magnitude. Effective marketing campaigns should start in earnest to sell destination Uganda, capitalising on our weather, rich organic food, and security as some of the reasons to choose Uganda over the other hosts. Government agencies – UTB, Ministry of Trade, and Uganda Airlines – and private players in the hotel and transport sectors must work together to coordinate different campaigns to target not just foreigners but Ugandans too.
Uganda will attract not only sports fans but also those who will watch from afar but may be swayed by the media to visit the country. Government should also not cut tourism budget in this critical period. Doing so will give our competitors – Nairobi and Dar es Salaam – an upper hand. If successful, the tournaments could encourage Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania to jointly bid for more international sports activities in future. As the world’s flashlight turns to our direction, we need careful planning, collaboration, and innovation for CHAN 2025 and AFCON 2027. They offer a chance to grow our tourism potential. We must grab it.
The writer is a research analyst at EPRC, Makerere University
