Mbonye moves to boost economy through Christian tourism to Uganda

Zoe Ministries founder Prophet Elvis Mbonye is set to boost the tourism sector through Christian tourism this coming year 2020.

According to Mbonye, in the forthcoming year, he will be attracting close to 300,000 foreign visitors to his weekly fellowships and these, he says will earn Uganda $5 billion a year.

On Friday, pictures of Mbonye flying with the Uganda airlines on an unknown destination went viral on social media and these he says are some of the efforts to boost the country’s tourism.

Scores of Christians, according to Mbonye will travel to Uganda to attend prophetic fellowships, meetings, seminars starting with Tuesday 7th January 2020 which will benefit the sector immensely.

Unlike other once in a year international meetings, Mbonye’s international meetings will be weekly events in Kampala, he says, adding that some of the entities to directly benefit include Uganda airlines through maximization of the benefits of air transport, leisure centres, hotels, restaurants, shopping malls, as well as visiting culture artifacts sales.

In recent years both spiritual and religious tourism have grown to be one of the largest branches of tourism.

It is estimated that seven percent of the world’s Christians, about 168 million people are “on the move as pilgrims” each year.

Spiritual tourism, unlike religious tourism, he says,  attracts people from different religious backgrounds seeking inspiration and supernatural intervention.

According to Mbonye followers, religious tourism only attracts faithfuls of that given religious sect, for example the Namugongo martyrs shrine is one of the sites for religious tourism in Uganda which attracts Catholics and Protestants from different parts of the world to learn and pay tribute to the martyrs who were killed by Kabaka Muwanga of Uganda once every year.

It is said that this site receives approximately two million pilgrims on the third of June annually.

“If Uganda government  promoted Prophet Mbonye’s prophecies and miracles as a heritage, we would soon see hundreds of thousands visiting Kampala on a weekly basis, owing to the weekly Zoe fellowship meetings that will be Jam packed with inspiration, prophesies that empower individuals, national leaders and powerful business men attending these fellowships, to plan better for the year”, said Collins Tugumisirize an economic strategy consultant working with Leverage Africa Limited but also one of Mbonye’s faithfuls.

Tugumisirize added that “CNN twice ranked Uganda as having one of the world’s highest tourism potential to become number one tourist destination in the world, but has failed to compete against South Africa, Kenya, Morocco and Egypt on the same wildlife or historical sites.”

Quoting Prof. Ephraim Kamuntu, the former minister of Tourism and wildlife, Tugumisirize said that “Uganda needs to focus on promoting conferences, fellowships and meeting events that will attract repeat international visitors in larger numbers.”

“If Nigeria’s immigration says that 6 out of every 10 visitors to Lagos have come to attend the weekly service of Prophet TB Joshua which hosts over 150,000 weekly. How many more people from different denominations will come to Kampala, if Uganda embraces and promotes Prophet Elvis Mbonye’s meetings,” he wondered.

 

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