East Africa officially launches the use of a single tourists’ visa

Heads of State from Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda officially launched the use of a single East Africa tourists’ visa in Kampala and this one of the major integration projects that have been jointly undertaken by the three countries over the last nine months. The Presidents gave out three dummy Tourist Visas to three tourists from Canada, UK and Spain during the ceremony.

This tourist visa was introduced to make the three partner states a single tourist destination and started operating on January 1 this year.

President Paul Kagame, Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya together with their host, Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, also launched use of national Identity Cards, student cards and voter’s cards by the citizens as travel documents across three participating countries.

Meanwhile the head of tourism department at the Rwanda Development Board (RDB), Rica Rwigamba said that the single tourist visa will make East Africa compete with other top tourist destinations across the world because the tourists in this case have many choices of getting value for their money by seeing more in just one trip across the three countries.

Laia Sole Amat, a tourist from Barcelona, Spain, who received a dummy visa from President Kagame, described the single tourist visa as a great opportunity for many people from the west and beyond.

The Chief Executive Officer of Uganda Tourism Board (UTB) Stephen Asiimwe said this global tourism trends indicates that tourists are more interested in a more holistic travel experience. This achievement is a sign of continued efforts and cooperation among the 3 tourism boards from the 3 countries and will continue to grow as they launch the joint marketing platform, he added.

Each single tourist visa goes for US$100, charged by the issuing country and the issuing country will take $40 while the others will each take $30. Kenya was asked to develop the sample application form for the visa and share it with partner states for input within two weeks after the Summit and then the ministers of finance, foreign affairs and Internal affairs of the partner states was also asked to meet and agree on modalities for a Special Visa Fees Account.

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