Uganda turns to Berlin football club to grow German tourist market

Uganda’s Embassy in Berlin has signed a three-year partnership with Berlin football club VfB Einheit zu Pankow that will put the country’s tourism brand in front of German football fans. The deal links Uganda’s tourism promotion to the global sports tourism market, which is valued at about $683 billion.

Under the Memorandum of Understanding signed on 1 November in Pankow, the “Explore Uganda – The Pearl of Africa” brand will appear on the kits of the club’s first men’s team and its G2 youth team. Ambassador Danny Ssozi, the embassy’s chargé d’affaires a.i., signed the agreement alongside Second Secretary Jessica Namuddu.

“The partnership seeks to leverage football’s popularity in Germany to increase Uganda’s visibility, attract potential visitors and strengthen people-to-people relations between the two countries,” Ssozi said.

The embassy said the partnership will also help it reach young people and build lasting links with local communities in Berlin.

The signing took place on the day of the Pankow derby between VfB Einheit zu Pankow and FC Concordia Wilhelmsruh, clubs founded in 1893 and 1895 respectively, a fixture with more than a century of local football tradition behind it.

The agreement is the latest step in the embassy’s campaign to grow arrivals from Germany. According to the embassy, Uganda receives more than 28,000 German tourists a year and aims to raise that to 40,000 through targeted promotion and localised marketing, including German translations of tourism materials. Over the past year the mission has run a ten-day familiarisation trip to Uganda for 12 German travel trade partners with the Uganda Tourism Board, exhibited at ITB Berlin in March, and held a tourism roadshow in Düsseldorf followed by the first Uganda Cultural and Tourism Festival in Munich.

The Berlin push forms part of Uganda’s Economic and Commercial Diplomacy (ECD) Strategy. The strategy covers FY 2025/26–2029/30 and was launched in Gulu in August 2025. It makes Uganda’s diplomatic missions front-line platforms for exports, foreign direct investment, tourism, technology partnerships and climate finance, in line with Vision 2040, the Fourth National Development Plan and the Tenfold Growth Strategy.

The partnership comes as Uganda’s tourism sector reports record results. International arrivals rose 19.7 per cent to 1,642,215 in 2025, reaching 106 per cent of pre-pandemic levels, while tourism receipts grew 21.3 per cent to $1.62 billion (Shs6.28 trillion).

The trend has carried into 2026, with visitors spending more and staying longer. According to half-year figures from the Ministry of Tourism, Wildlife and Antiquities, Uganda welcomed 739,815 international visitors between January and June 2026. Tourism receipts rose 25.6 per cent to about Shs2.3 trillion, and the average stay lengthened from 7.4 to 8.3 nights. Government figures show tourism accounts for 57.2 per cent of Uganda’s services exports and directly supports 876,512 jobs.

Tourism is one of the main pillars of the Tenfold Growth Strategy, which aims to grow Uganda’s GDP from nearly $50 billion in 2023 to $500 billion by 2040. Doreen Silva Katusiime, Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Tourism, Wildlife and Antiquities, has said the government aims to raise annual tourism earnings from $1.6 billion to $50 billion by 2040, which requires sustained growth of at least 22 per cent a year in both earnings and international arrivals.

Uganda’s missions abroad are increasingly using sport to market the country. The embassy in Addis Ababa recently ran a promotional campaign for the 2026 Rwenzori Marathon to boost tourism and economic diplomacy.

The embassy said it looks forward to working with VfB Einheit zu Pankow to turn the partnership into greater tourism visibility, community engagement and stronger Uganda–Germany relations through sport.