© Camerapix

Economic impact
Tourism is a highly significant sector of the economy. The sector is an important source of foreign exchange earnings. Presently, tourism is the second largest foreign exchange after coffee. Tourism is also a generator of tax revenues for the different levels of government and has strong linkages to other sectors of the economy such as agriculture, transport and communications.
In addition to its overall economic importance to the country, tourism has provided the local people with employment particularly the communities bordering the national game parks and forest reserves. These communities have also benefited from training and extension work thus encouraging conservation at the community level. In addition, the local communities are using the facilities and services at the tourist sites for various purposes to promote their standards of living.

The tourist sites also provide a means for women to sell their handcrafts as a supplement to their income. In some areas, the local communities are involved in the planning and management of the recreational development to ensure that the needs and ideas of women and the youth are incorporated. A number of private sectors — both national and international — have made a lot of investments near the major tourist attractions.

© Camerapix

Places of Interest
In addition to the renowned national game parks and reserves, Uganda boasts of several places of interest to tourists. These include:

Bwindi National Park
Opened in 1993, Bwindi Impenetrable National Park has more mountain gorillas than any other park in Africa. The park was closed in 1999 following the murder of eight tourists by Rwandan terrorists in 1999 but has since reopened under tight security. Specially trained guides help tourists locate the elusive gorillas. Independent visits to the park requires a permit, available from the National Parks Department in Kampala. Besides gorillas, the park has more than 120 species of mammals, including 10 species of primates and plenty of birds, orchids and insects.

Kabalega National Park
This impressive park is home to gazelles, hippos, a few elephants, crocodiles and a range of smaller animals. Although the animal population was severely depleted by poachers during the years of Uganda’s decline (1970s and early 80s), the numbers seem to be rebounding. The park has two other sights: Kabalega (Murchison) Falls and Karuma Falls, both on the Nile River. A minimum of two days would be required to get a real sense of the park although the Kabalega Falls have for some time been considered unsafedue to the Lord’s Resistance Rebels (LRA) insurgency. The Sarova Paraa Lodge, whichoverlooks the Nile downstream from Murchison Falls, is one of a number of the country’s recently improved tourist facilities.

Kidepo Valley Park

© Camerapix

Located on the Sudanese border, Kidepo Valley Park is the third-largest national park in the country. In spite of its significant size however, it has never attracted many tourists. Kidepo is famous for its cheetahs, ostriches and giraffes although the giraffe population has reduced to a handful of animals in the past few years. Kidepo’s lack of development and tourists was formerly one of its attractions. Occasional clashes between soldiers and civilian poachers have at times kept wildlife workers at bay. There are however no hotel accommodations in the park, so tourists only camp.

Lake Mburo
National Park
This park, easily accessible from Kampala, has antelope, zebras, impalas and other animals. The lake and its avian life also appeals to bird-watchers.

Mgahinga Gorilla
National Park
This reserve was opened in 1991 to protect the mountain gorillas of the Uganda portion of Virunga Volcano range. The park is not currently open to tourism due to the security problems in the neighbouring Congo and Rwanda.

Rwenzori
This fascinating mountainous area in the western Rift Valley is one of the country’s prime attractions. Ruwenzori’s features include geothermal activity, numerous lakes and jagged, volcanic mountains known as the “Mountains of the Moon.” Astride the mountains sits Ruwenzori National Park (formerly Queen Elizabeth National Park), home to a few lions and elephants, many hippos, buffalo and other animals. The place is fantastic to trek, and the Mubuku Valley Restaurant, next to park headquarters, offers a lot of potato pancakes to tourists.

Kampala attractions
Set just a few miles north of Lake Victoria, Kampala is a hilly, pleasant city whose once-attractive downtown still bears the scars of war. The city has a cracked and crumbling feeling-half-built, large-scale construction sites covered with lush vegetation. The National Museum, located in Kamwokya has excellent historical and cultural displays. In addition, the Lake Victoria, Namugongo Martyrs’ Shrine, Kasubi Tombs and Kabaka’s Palace are interesting excursions for tourists. Although their works are not intended for tourists (and may not be for sale), students at the Makerere School of Industrial and Fine Arts also create fascinating pieces of art, many of which reflect the hard condition of Ugandan life. Entebbe town, site of the international airport and eye-catching botanical gardens, is just 40 km southwest of the capital on a paved road.

© Camerapix

Jinja attractions
Located on Lake Victoria, Jinja town is the source of the White Nile begins, as it leaves Lake Victoria on its 3,470-mi/5,590-km journey to the Mediterranean. The town is also the site of Owen Falls Dam and the famous Bujagali Water Falls. Recently, water rafting has become a common attraction at the falls.

Management of the sector
The overall supervision of the tourism sector is under the Ministry of Trade, Tourism and Industry headed by a Cabinet Minister. In recognition of the importance of the industry however, government rationalized the institutional structures for the effective development and promotion of tourism. This rationalization resulted into the merger of the Uganda National Parks (UNP) and the Game Department (GD) to form the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA). While the UWA is primarily concerned with wildlife related tourism products development, the Uganda Travel Bureau (UTB) is the primary institution for the promotion of tourism products developed.

The Uganda Sustainable Tourism Development Programme (UGSTDP) is a Logical Framework developed as a result of a consultative workshop attended by key actors in the industry, public and private sectors. It is managed by a steering committee under the chairmanship of the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Tourism, Trade and Industry. The permanent members of the steering committee include the Uganda Tourist Board (UTB), the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA), the Uganda Tourism Association (UTA), the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development, the Delegation of the European Commission in Uganda and the Chief Technical Advisor, UGSTDP.

Latest developments
in the sector

QEPA in tourism boom
Queen Elizabeth Protected Area (QEPA) has experienced an influx of local and foreign tourists and expects a peak by August 2004. Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) officials said a total of 10,655 tourists visited the park since February 2004, with over 3,000 tourists recorded in May. About 4,000 tourists are likely to visit during the August/ September peak season.

© Camerapix

QEPA covers Queen Elizabeth Park, Kyambura, Kigezi and Ishasha region. The visitors’ favourite sports included boat-riding on the Kazinga Channel. The attractions also include game viewing in Kasenyi, chimpanzee-tracking in Kyambura gorge, watching the Ishasha tree-climbing lions, Katwe and Maramagambo crater lakes, bat caves and bird sanctuaries. The tourists came from the UK (1,909), USA (1,681), Holland (825), Italy (275), Belgium (148), Denmark (220), France (174) and Germany (637). Others were from Spain (343), Australia (296), New Zealand (211) and Switzerland (189).

President stops Semliki
take over
President Yoweri Museveni personally intervened to oppose the change of land use of Toro-Semliki wildlife reserve despite his directive to allow pastoralists and refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to graze in part of the reserve. In a letter to reserve officials in May 2004, the President said that he was aware that the people from Rwebisengo wanted to degazette part of the wildlife reserve for expansion of their grazing grounds.

© Camerapix Uganda, Murchison Falls, White Nile.

He maintained that the wildlife reserve which had suf-fered due to wanton destruction of game would remain a protected area. He directed that refugees from the Congo who speak similar language with the Batuku and the local herdsmen should be allowed to graze in part of the park. In a related development, the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) set aside 10% of the 542 square kilometre reserve as controlled area for grazing and corridors through which the cattle can access watering points along River Wassa.

Uganda to export chimps
The Uganda government will export three chimpanzees to China before the end of 2004. Ministry of Tourism officials said the chimps were “a gift to a friendly nation.” They said the motive behind the development was a bilateral gesture to the people of China; a country that has contributed enormously to the development of Uganda for several decades.

South Africa to promote tourism
With terrorism threats taking a toll on foreign visitors to East Africa, South Africa has injected over 45 million Rand ($7.5m) in direct marketing of their tourism prospects during the 2004/05 FY. The head of South African Tourism in the region, Mr. Cheryl Carolus said his organization is targeting the media within and outside South Africa to make them understand the tourism potential so that they dispense the right message.

Rakai district
to promote eco-tourism
Rakai district, located in the central part of the country is asking for more funds to promote eco-tourism at Musambwa Island bird sanctuary on Lake Victoria. District officials say it is a priority for them to protect the birds and nature to attract tourists. Musabwa, which comprises three small islands in Rakai district, is considered to be the only breeding ground for the Egretta garzetta (little Egret) in Uganda. It also provides a temporary home for other globally-important migratory birds such as the long-tailed cormorant and the grey-headed gulls. Eco-tourism would benefit the communities economically and encourage them to protect nature. The district has already established a tourism association and plans are now underway to build a road and a landing site.

© Camerapix

Squaring up to the tourism challenges
Uganda’s tourism sector faces the daunting challenge of delineating the relative roles of the private local and foreign tourism partners in development decisions in the country. In particular, there are delays in making and implementing decisions in the areas of investment, marketing and operation of the enterprises that are critical to the tourism industry. The key issue for all concerned is to recognise that the development decisions made by them do have wider implications for the entire industry. Government officials — both at the central and local levels are yet to recognise the implications of their actions in the overall interest of the long-run economic sustainability of the tourism sector.
Another important challenge to the sector is the need to develop human resources, particularly indigenous personnel, both for reasons of delivering quality services for tourists, as well as enhancing general skills of the local workforce. Achieving these broad objectives will potentially encourage sound utilisation of local suppliers and thus enhance not only their productivity but also inter-sectoral linkages. This is important to create spin-off effects from the industry.

© Martin Malunga

There are also challenges facing the tourism sector in Uganda that are characterised by a large number of small and medium-sized tourism enterprises (SMEs). Although SMEs serve useful functions in tourism such as the development of forward and backward linkages and providing personal service, life is a daily struggle for most of them. In fact of them operate at the margin of survival. They lack the requisite experience to run tourism business along modern management principles. Even the nature of tourism demand renders them uncompetitive as they are unable to capitalise on the advantages that accrue from the economies of scale. The real challenge is for them to develop marketing strategies that would enable them overcome some of these difficulties and thereby sell their products. Their limited resource base however still renders this objective hard to achieve.

Finally, like many other key sectors of the economy, tourism faces the problem of the never-ending insurgency in the northern parts of the country and the relatively poor infrastructure that makes accessibility to the tourist places difficult and expensive.

© Martin Malunga

Conclusion
Although Uganda has good attractions to tourists, it has not taken its fair share of the international holiday and leisure market because of a poor image that is often associated with insecurity. The sector has strong potential for re-establishment but there is no doubt that some of its key tourist resources are not well developed. An inadequate human resource base and low levels of service characterize the industry. Improving manpower capabilities and professionalism across the industry are therefore key issues to be addressed. While tourism training should be led by the private sector under a regulatory framework set by the government, there is still need for better collaboration between training institutions and all the sector players. The country needs upgraded tourist facilities and an improved transportation network to take full advantage of this sector’s potential.