During the annual world tourism week held this week, Uganda’s tour operators agreed to promote the rich Uganda culture through including it with in tourists itineraries. The was discussed during a summon held in Mbale – a district well known for the famous imbalu, (circumcision) ceremonies, which is annually cerebrated. During the summon, a very important question was the gist of the day. What does tourism entail?

At a mention of tourism, many will automatically think about what nature has to offer;including, water features, wild animals, landscape, flora and fauna, scenery and other features as well as products of the earth as opposed to human creation. These are key human created tourist attractions but we need to recognise that tourism goes beyond natural features, especially if a country intends to use tourism as a tool to foster development. Once managed sustainably, tourism is one of the most effective tools that can boost a country’s economy and its overall national growth.

As a multidimensional entity, tourism is closely linked to other sectors and economic activities, all of which require working together and cautious management to promote sustainable tourism. However, promotion of tourism in Uganda is largely hindered by a number of factors that include environmental, cultural, socio-economic; poor infrastructure and other constraints that, if adequately addressed, can help the country reap substantial profits from tourism.

Promoting local cultures and traditions as well as preserving our heritage is also crucial. Its very important to include our culture into tour itineraries while travelers are visiting the country. The rate at which our cultures and traditions are fast disappearing is alarming. We have chosen to adopt foreign cultures instead of promoting and preserving our indigenous ones. One wonders whether we are not sending the wrong signal to the young generation about our cultures and traditions as being useless.

One of the major reasons why a tourist is interested in visiting Uganda is the urge to experience different cultures and traditions. Tourism allows the diversity of the world to be experienced at first hand. This is through language, food, culture and traditions, customs and rituals. Surely, we are not short of the above but rather limited by unequal distribution of cultural resources and the non-recognition of many cultural communities’ history and cultural heritage. Every attraction and locality has a story to tell and a history to explore. This, therefore, calls for developing a strong link between tourism and culture to make different regions more attractive to tourists besides increasing their competitiveness as locations to visit, work, live and invest in.

The common and widely used form of transport in Uganda is road. However, much as there are on-going road works, our infrastructure is still poor. Most of the roads to the countryside where one can truly see and experience the beauty of our country are difficult or impossible to navigate – even the roads in the urban centers are sub-standard. This hinders tourists from visiting certain tourist sites, thus loss of tourist revenue that would come from such places.
Essentially, good transportation infrastructure is key to tourism promotion. Local infrastructure that supports visitor activities also supports the local communities. Roads that are safe and enjoyable with stop points along the way enhance touring experience. Therefore, we need massive investments in infrastructure to gain from the tourism sector. Furthermore, extending services like broadband services, signage, social services, garbage collection centers and public toilets to rural areas and on high ways would go a long way in promoting tourism.

At present, we are not doing enough as far as protecting and conserving our environment is concerned. From cutting down forests for commercial and domestic use to building in wetlands and suffocating our waters with dangerous materials like plastics, we are destroying our environment. Yet we want to promote tourism.

Primarily, successful promotion of tourism depends a lot on the quality of the environment. If we want to see more tourists visiting our country, government has to be serious on implementing polices related to conservation and protection of the environment. Similarly, there should be continuous sensitization of communities on environmental protection and conservation.

The potential for tourism growth is significant. Uganda is well endowed with good weather, plentiful wildlife, extensive natural and cultural attractions, and adventure opportunities. However, without effective, rational and well-coordinated government policies and actions, tourism in Uganda will fail to grow to its full potential.