Marketing Strategies Set For Uganda’s Tourism

Kenya and Rwanda among the East African countries have been the best in marketing there tourism attractions. Uganda also wants to borrow a leaf from them. For several years, Uganda’s tourism has been poorly advertised to the rest of the world and within. Countries like Rwanda have always done this to bring to notice there Unique Mountain Gorillas. This has brought in many tourists to take gorilla trekking safaris to Rwanda. Lately, the tourism, wildlife and antiquities ministry is re-positioning itself and promoting the country as one of the sought after tourist destination in Africa.

Hon minister for Tourism commented that they want to improve roads going to game parks and other tourist attractions to make them easily accessible to visitors. Power and lodges in those places need also to be improved. He continued that “These will help position the country as an attractive destination to foreigners, which will boost foreign exchange earnings.” Prof. Ephraim Kamuntu, the tourism minister noted that, the ministry would promote domestic tourism to ensure Ugandans feel that the tourist attractions are part of our inheritance. He added that this would attract more foreign tourists and, hence, more foreign exchange receipts.

The minister excited the stake holders who attended g the tourism sector second review conference at Hotel African in Kampala recently. This conference was organized draw strategies on how to enhance tourism contribution to GDP growth, employment and foreign exchange.

Members present brain stormed on strategies to make Uganda a top tourism destination in the region. Kamuntu poke out that the ministry would establish Uganda tourism clubs in schools to instill a sense of love towards wildlife tourism and heritage among the young generation. He noted that that the country’s poor infrastructure was presently affecting the development of the sector.

Others present like Wasswa Balunywa, the principal of Makerere University Business School, suggested that there was a need to repackage the sector if it is to compete favourably worldwide. He pointed out the poor work ethics and lack of confidence among Ugandans as major challenges failing the sector to compete favourably. Mr Balunywa said this when presenting a paper titled Transforming Uganda’s tourism industry to compete on the world stage at the conference.

Prof. Kamuntu has requested the Government to assign funds to ministries depending on their contribution to country’s gross domestic product (GDP). He argued that this would ensure better returns to the development of each sector. He was amazed by the fact that the tourism sector, which contributes 9.2% to GDP, gets only 0.14% of the national budget allocation.

Prof Kamuntu said that if the Government wants a better return, it must invest where that return comes from.
GORILLA TREKKING NEWS