Entitled as the pearl of Africa by church hill Winston, Uganda has currently up stretched its tourism potential positioning as the fourth best tourism endpoint according to the UK based travel producer rough guide. Wide reaching, Uganda has been known as a tourism hub due to her safety and security which guarantees good health for most travelers coming from all parts of the world. According to the report, the leading tourism countries were India, Scotland and Canada respectively, after which Uganda shone as the next.
Uganda offers the un beaten kind of experience made possible by numerous descriptions ranging from cultural, historical, natural and manmade features. All these have attracted many people most especially the first time travelers. Uganda’ tourism sector has now revamped despite the poor performance in the past decades. Approximately 10% of the country’s total gross domestic product is earned from tourism, which has improved the country’s economy. Importantly still, over 10 million people both Ugandans and foreigners employed in the sector, which has in turn improved their standards of living.
However, not withstanding the sector’s fast growth, investigations have shown that domestic tourism is still low with limited participation of Ugandans in tourism. In order to address this, the ministry of tourism has pledged to increase on investments as far as endorsing domestic tourism is concerned in this year of 2017.
Additionally, local people are thought to have the extreme and aboriginal acquaintance concerning attractions and all tourism sites in their own country hence the best people to visit and encourage tourism. More still, it is believed that once Ugandans come to understand tourism in their country; they would then be in better position to spread the expression as well as supporting tourism industry all year round.
Last year, various government initiatives such as Tulambule as well as private initiatives including the Ondaba, travel month and koi koi were organized to boost domestic tourism in the country. However, the challenge is that as much as some Ugandans have developed a spirit of tourism, they prefer travelling to outside countries mostly for leisure but not in Uganda.
Therefore, much as the ministry of tourism has now aimed at marketing the industry with a strategic purpose of recruiting local tourists, Ugandans have an obligation of perplexing themselves so as to stimulate the gemstone of promoting domestic tourism they have in their midst.
All neighborhoods adjacent to protected especially national parks are given 20% of the total revenue earned from tourism. Recently, the Uganda wildlife authority (UWA) a body responsible for tourism in Uganda allocated shs936m to all bordering districts to Queen Elizabeth national park. This 20% shared by all local communities is alleged to advance the standards of living for the local people, which in turn promote positive feelings of local people towards tourism in their respective communities.
Proper planning has been owed as the only resolution to the continuous grievances that local people have had about the undesirable impacts of tourism. Wild animals such as elephants, hippos and buffalos which escape from the national parks wandering in people’s gardens and destroying people’s property has been a big problem facing local communities.
More still a criticism was raised that most tourism projects set up in local communities are not relevant to local people and do not help them in anyway which has obstructed them from taking part and supporting tourism. Therefore, it has been comprehended that for domestic tourism to grasp its full potential, all Ugandans must first escalate tourism as the means to improve their standards beyond statistics.
In conclusion therefore, a collective effort of all Ugandans together with all stakeholders is required so as to ensure the increased benefits of domestic tourism to all beneficiaries.
