Ten years ago, the Pearl of Africa Tourism Expo was a modest industry gathering trying to put Uganda on the map. When the 10th edition of POATE opens at Speke Resort Munyonyo on 21 May 2026 under the theme “Wanderlust It’s Your Time to Thrive,” Uganda will arrive not with ambition alone, but with proof.
Official statistics published by the Ministry of Tourism, Wildlife and Antiquities (MTWA) in its Statistical Abstract 2025, released in April 2026, confirm that Uganda’s tourism industry has delivered its strongest financial performance in history. Tourism earnings reached a record US$ 1.62 billion (UGX 5.83 trillion) in 2025, representing a 21.3% growth from 2024 and cementing Uganda’s position as one of East Africa’s most consequential and fastest-growing tourism economies.
The timing could not be more deliberate. As POATE 2026 prepares to welcome global hosted buyers, investors, tour operators, and media representatives from across the world, Uganda steps onto the stage with a ledger that speaks for itself.
The Numbers Behind the Story
The figures in the MTWA Statistical Abstract 2025 are not incremental gains they represent a structural leap in Uganda’s tourism economy.
The record $1.62 billion in tourism receipts surpasses every previous benchmark in the sector’s history, reflecting both the volume of visitors and crucially the quality of the spending they generate. Average tourist expenditure per trip climbed to $986, while leisure tourists, who tend to stay longer and engage more deeply with destinations, spent an average of $2,144 per trip, more than double the overall average.
These figures place Uganda firmly among the destinations where tourism delivers high-value returns, not merely high visitor numbers.
The macro-economic significance is equally striking. According to the Statistical Abstract, tourism now accounts for 10% of Uganda’s total exports and a commanding 57.2% of service exports, meaning more than half of everything Uganda earns from services globally is generated by visitors who come to experience the Pearl of Africa.
The sector supported over 876,512 jobs in 2025, roughly 1 in every 14 employed Ugandans and contributed an estimated 5.9% to national GDP, up from previous years, alongside UGX 5.77 trillion in capital formation, representing 12.6% of total national investment.
For a sector that was virtually shuttered by the COVID-19 pandemic just a few years ago, these numbers represent more than a recovery. They represent a reinvention.
A Record That Sets the Stage for POATE 2026
The Pearl of Africa Tourism Expo, organised by the Uganda Tourism Board (UTB) in partnership with the MTWA and its agencies, has long served as Uganda’s principal platform for translating the country’s natural and cultural wealth into commercial relationships. In its 10th year, POATE 2026, themed “Wanderlust – It’s Your Time to Thrive,” carries new weight.
When Minister of Tourism, Wildlife and Antiquities, Hon. Col. (Rtd.) Tom Butime launched POATE 2026 in Kampala in November 2025. He framed the expo not merely as a trade fair but as a statement of intent. The theme, as Issa Kato, Vice-President of the Uganda Tourism Association (UTA), described it at the launch, “speaks to Uganda’s rare beauty landscapes that read like poetry, cultures that speak to identity, and experiences that stay long after the journey.”
That poetry now has a price tag: $1.62 billion.
UTB Chief Executive Officer Juliana Kagwa has consistently described POATE as “a vital bridge connecting Uganda’s tourism offerings with the world.” At this year’s expo, that bridge is stronger than it has ever been. The record receipts offer something that no marketing brochure or destination showcase can manufacture: verified, government-reported evidence that Uganda delivers returns on tourism investment.
For the global buyers, investors, and operators arriving at Speke Resort Munyonyo this month, that is the most compelling pitch of all.
What’s Driving the Spend and Who Is Spending
Behind the headline figure of $1.62 billion lies a nuanced story of market evolution that POATE 2026 is well-positioned to accelerate.
The MTWA Statistical Abstract 2025 records that international tourist arrivals reached 1,642,215 in 2025 a 19.7% increase from 2024 and 106% of the 2019 pre-pandemic benchmark. But the more telling development is the composition of those arrivals and their spending behaviour.
While Africa continues to dominate arrivals at 79.2%, overseas visitors grew by a remarkable 140.4% a surge driven by strong performance from Asia (7.8% of arrivals), Europe (7.1%), and the Americas (4.2%). The United Kingdom, India, the United States, Germany, and the Netherlands are among the leading long-haul markets. These overseas visitors are exactly the segment that generates the highest per-trip spending and POATE 2026’s B2B architecture, bringing together global hosted buyers and Ugandan operators, is precisely the mechanism through which such relationships are built and sustained.
Leisure tourists who account for the lion’s share of spending at $2,144 per trip are drawn by Uganda’s distinctive portfolio: mountain gorilla tracking in Bwindi, chimpanzee experiences in Kibale, the wildlife-rich savannahs of Queen Elizabeth and Murchison Falls, the cultural depth of the Buganda Kingdom, adventure along the River Nile, and the serene shores of Lake Victoria. These are not commodity offerings. They are experiencing that command premium pricing and the spending data confirms that visitors are willing to pay.
“It’s Your Time to Thrive” The Theme in Context
The theme “Wanderlust – It’s Your Time to Thrive” is more than a marketing line. Read against the backdrop of the Statistical Abstract’s findings, it takes on specific meaning for each of Uganda’s tourism stakeholders.
For hoteliers and lodge operators, thriving means capitalising on a market where visitor spending is rising not just in volume but in value per head. The shift towards high-spend leisure tourists creates a structural opportunity for premium and mid-market accommodation providers to move upmarket.
For tour operators and DMCs, thriving means converting the surge in overseas interest, particularly from Asia, Europe, and the Americas, into contracted itineraries. POATE’s B2B sessions, connecting 70-plus international buyers with Uganda’s operator community, are the engine room of that conversion.
For community-based tourism enterprises, a growing pillar of Uganda’s product offering, thriving means accessing the global distribution networks that POATE provides. UTB Board Chairperson Pearl Hoareau Kakooza has specifically highlighted agrotourism and community-based experiences as priority growth areas, noting that “it is a double score if we combine the two strong pillars and market them at once.”
For investors, thriving means deploying capital into a sector that has just posted 21.3% revenue growth in a single year, with 10% share of total national exports as validation of its economic heft.
And for Uganda as a nation, thriving means continuing the trajectory that the Statistical Abstract has documented: from pandemic-era collapse to billion-dollar recovery, from regional footnote to globally recognised destination.
The 10-Year Journey to This Moment
The symbolism of POATE’s 10th anniversary should not be understated. When the expo was first launched, Uganda’s tourism sector was fragmented, under-marketed, and significantly under-performing relative to its natural endowments. Over a decade, POATE has served as the annual inflection point around which the sector has organised, invested, and presented itself to the world.
That journey has not been linear. The COVID-19 pandemic delivered a near-fatal blow. Arrivals collapsed, earnings evaporated, and hospitality businesses across Uganda shuttered. POATE itself was disrupted. The recovery has been hard-won.
But the 2025 Statistical Abstract charts something more than recovery. The 21.3% growth in earnings from 2024 to 2025, after already strong growth in 2023 and 2024, suggests compounding momentum. Average spend per visitor is rising. The overseas market is diversifying. National Park visitation is at its highest ever, led by Murchison Falls (150,831 visitors) and Queen Elizabeth National Park (123,521 visitors). Gorilla permit utilisation hit a record 42,960 sold permits 8.4% above 2019 levels.
The sector is not merely recovering its pre-pandemic peak. It is building a new, higher one.
What POATE 2026 Must Deliver
Yet record numbers also carry responsibility. The MTWA Statistical Abstract is candid about the challenges that accompany success. Gorilla permit supply is becoming constrained in peak season, August utilisation approached 96% in 2025. Infrastructure, connectivity, and skilled human capital will need to scale alongside visitor numbers if quality is to be maintained. Conservation threats, most acutely, the decline of Uganda’s lion population to just 291 individuals, must be addressed if the wildlife product that underpins much of the high-spend leisure market is to remain intact.
POATE 2026 has a role to play on all fronts. Its investment forums can surface the capital needed for infrastructure. Its conservation and sustainability sessions can integrate wildlife stewardship into the commercial tourism conversation. And its central message that Uganda is a destination where spending is rising, where experiences are unique, and where the sector is professionalising can attract the partners, buyers, and investors who will sustain this growth beyond 2026.
The UTB’s “tenfold growth strategy” referenced repeatedly by UTB leadership sets an ambitious horizon for what Uganda’s tourism sector can become. The $1.62 billion earned in 2025 is, in that frame, not a ceiling. It is a floor.
A Billion-Dollar Message to the World
When the doors open at Speke Resort Munyonyo on 21 May 2026, and the buyers, operators, investors, and media fill the halls of Uganda’s premier tourism showcase, they will be greeted by a country with something rare in the competitive global tourism landscape: a verified record.
The MTWA Statistical Abstract 2025 states it plainly that tourism earnings reached US$ 1.62 billion in 2025, a 21.3% rise from 2024, with average tourist expenditure of $986 per trip rising to $2,144 for leisure visitors, and tourism accounting for 10% of total national exports and 57.2% of service exports.
These are not aspirations. They are audited outcomes.
