I recently met up with Samuel Mugisha, the Managing Director of BIC Tours, a tour and travel company that mainly specializes in Japanese tourists. All the clients of BIC Tours receive a package of locally grown coffee and pineapples from the land. These are given out as souvenirs to the tourists.
Sam (as he is commonly known) is a very humble man that you may miss him as you look forward to meeting a bigger and space consuming Sam. His story is one driven more by a cause to help others than satisfy self. As a fresh graduate, Sam found himself in care of his family upon his father’s demise. For the big family that it is, (28 children) and being the first boy child in the family, he wanted to extend a hand of help to his other siblings to acquire the education that they needed.
This was not to come easy. When he got an opportunity to go to Japan to study Japanese, he was more than glad. He jumped on to the opportunity and that consequently gave birth to BIC Tours as he shares here.
It is always a good culture to give something to visitors and having lived in Japan where gifting is a great deal, Sam was pushed to think of how to consider gifting his tourists. It is important to give a gift that is consumable, he was advised.
Gorilla coffee gives a picture of Uganda, it signifies that someone is from the Gorilla republic. This kind of marketing goes to places where the internet isn’t. It comes up at conversations that you would never be a part of. and most importantly, it comes up at coffee time.
There is need to buy something Ugandan from the Ugandan market. There is need to find Ugandan products in a Ugandan market. As people go around their trip, they get a chance to taste a local brand. It is important that people identify with the place where they are.
Ten years later, BIC Tours operates both in Uganda and Rwanda.
BIC Tours is located on the 1st Floor at Tirupati Mazima Mall, Kabalagala.