My Uganda, and the Coronavirus bang!

Current Coronavirus crisis and impact on tourism business





I would like to share with you some comments and opinions over the current coronavirus crisis versus the impact on our business. First of all, unless I am not aware myself, I notice silence from the side of the tour operators, perhaps to be attributed to the traumatizing situation we are in or perhaps because I have not personally followed some forum; in any case, I think there is need to share strategies and to do so collectively.

This is a time when we hear many Prophets of Misfortune alternating with Great Masters of Prosperity and Success, telling us how this is a good time, because through innovation and re-thinking we will have a great future. Unfortunately, I don’t see as many people down to Earth understanding what exactly we are going through and how to guide us through this Tsunami that crushed us. We should remember that, even though right now we are seen as “not essential” part of the economy, still we are and have been job creators and with multiple effects in various areas (hotels, food, conservation, …) and, mostly, we contributed highly to revenues and GDP.



I would like to summarize from my view the points of concern and see possible way forward:

Without notice and planning, we were simply forced to close our business by Mid-March 2020, because clients have stopped travelling. How long this is going to last? The issue is complicated, because it involves travel restrictions, airlines operations, decisions of different countries versus the development of the coronavirus pandemic. In any case, unless and until Uganda will decide to re-open entrances and airport, we will simply have no business. The decisions over re-opening will come, but some previsions and especially strategies should be in place. How and on what terms can we have travel restrictions lifted? What protocols travellers should follow? As a concerned party, I am sure we have a role to play.


We are financially in shit because of the following: all bookings were cancelled and possibly refunded through credits notes; the time of the arriving of this Tsunami was when each company was exposed with great investments in gorilla permits for the incoming seasons and all this investment cannot be reversed; we are requested to push forward bookings, forgetting that we cannot guarantee that after one year we will still be liable for the same, or having collapsed exposing many international suppliers.
Therefore: we need to find ways to keep in business until business will be open, basically we need some financial assistance; we need to find ways to recover some of the unproductive investments in gorilla permits by recovering cash. Cash will help the cash flow.

The idea of re-scheduling gorilla permits to future dates, though from the side of UWA is a help and a positive opening, still does not actually help the current emergency we are in. If we have paid cash, how can we get cash back even if in some percentages or in Bonuses to be used. It is very risky for us to blindly put forward dates of gorilla permits in future: what about if a new pandemic happens in October 2020 or in April 2021 and we are back to the beginning???

On the other side, we need easy financial assistance at zero cost of interest under government supervision / guarantee for the period covered until business is reopen.



We have been paying NSSF and Payee for employees and in other cases we hold on casual contracts or contracts of collaboration with people, like tour guides. It simply cannot be the sole responsibility of the private companies to take care of all this structure in time of emergency. The State should intervene by having temporary funds for employees of the tourism sector based on the current labour regulations and in order to relieve the private sector that is already in great difficulty. The human resources are not only numbers to move in and out (like some of the Great Masters think) but they are part of the history and soul of our business that made it the way it is. At stake is closing down years of history.


Many of our business have credit facilities open. Fortunately Bank of Uganda instructed the commercial banks to restructure their credit facilities for a period until one year. This looks like a support and we will see if this is going to happen and to work out. In any case, for the requirements of the credit facilities to be met, we need healthy businesses, which means with a prospective to restart operations within a reasonable period.


When and if business will resume, are they going to be new modes of operations and regulations that we need to implement and what are they. If we are now planning 2021, then we should be engaged into this from the start.
I would like to share with you these few points with the hope to help having a common strategy as a way forward. What I am aware of is that currently I only see some of our leaders talking about things which have nothing to do with helping our crisis and nothing to do about helping the loss of jobs. Like never before, there is need to act and lobby united.

My Uganda.... and the pain of the Tour operator