Uganda's embassy in Switzerland has partnered with Private Safaris, one of Switzerland's longest-established Africa travel specialists, to promote Uganda to tourists in Zurich.
As part of the partnership, adverts showing Uganda's wildlife and landscapes began running on trams in Zurich, Switzerland's largest city, on Wednesday. A promotional video has also been playing on screens at Zurich's main railway station since 1 September. It is shown every 20 to 30 minutes.
Private Safaris says it flew its first group of Swiss tourists to Kenya in 1971, and that Kuoni Reisen bought the company in 1989. It now operates as a brand of the travel group Dertour Suisse. The company says it has won the Swiss Travel Award for best Swiss tour operator for Africa 17 times. Gorilla trekking is already among the trips it sells.
The embassy said it chose Zurich for the tram adverts because of the city's concentration of high-income residents. It described the Swiss as among the world's most frequent international travellers and said they had high spending power.
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According to the embassy, the tram and station adverts together will give Uganda its first sustained, high-visibility promotion in the city, reaching residents, commuters and international travellers.
Uganda's ambassador to Switzerland, Marcel Tibaleka, said the partnership was about "bringing Uganda to Switzerland" and inviting Swiss people to visit the country.
"We look forward to translating this increased visibility into more Swiss tourists visiting Uganda," he said at the launch.
Uganda has long marketed itself as the "Pearl of Africa". The phrase comes from Winston Churchill's 1908 book My African Journey, in which he described the country's natural beauty after visiting it.
Uganda's best-known attraction is the endangered mountain gorilla. According to UNESCO, mountain gorillas live only in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park and the Virunga landscape, which spans Uganda, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Bwindi, in south-western Uganda, holds almost half of the global population, with 459 gorillas recorded in December 2018.
Ugandan embassies have used public transport advertising elsewhere in Europe this year. In June, the embassy in Paris ran three fully branded buses on major routes in the French capital, while the embassy in Copenhagen ran a similar campaign on the Danish capital's public transport network.
Uganda also had a national pavilion at the FESPO travel fair in Zurich earlier this year. The mission sponsored it, and 13 members of the Association of Uganda Tour Operators took part at a subsidised rate.
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The embassy said it would keep building partnerships in Switzerland to increase the number of Swiss visitors to Uganda, how much they spend and how long they stay.
