KAMPALA, UGANDA- Uganda’s hosting of the Commonwealth Summit will bolster the country’s tourism potential.
The government has renewed efforts aimed at strategizing and positioning the country for greater tourism returns, although a lot remains to be tackled especially the infrastructural development.
“We are not reaping the benefits yet of a good and beautiful country,” said Sarapio Rukundo, Uganda’s state minister for tourism recently.
Recently, a visiting group of Russian tour operators called for an improvement of some of the country’s infrastructure to attract more visitors.
The group of 10, including two journalists advised that for the country to tap the lucrative upmarket and big spending tourists from Europe, local facilities and infrastructure like roads must be improved.
Tourism is currently Uganda’s highest foreign exchange earner. But the current infrastructure needs more investment.
One of the recent initiatives aimed at turning around the industry is the formulation of a public-private partnership that is supposed to see the mass influx of tourists into the country.
The partnership is supposed to integrate community and conference tourism that allows visiting individuals to have a full feel of the communities, which they are visiting.
In 2006, about 538,586 tourists visited Uganda.
Rukundo says the country has the capacity to absorb one million tourists currently and that with more efforts, the figure should rise to over two million in the near future.
“But we are getting there,” Rukundo said.
Next month, Uganda will host the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), an opportunity that will attract more numbers to the country.
There is also a tourism budget in the forthcoming CHOGM.
The budget aims at designing a four-in-one scheme that should highlight Uganda’s dressing, food, drinks and handicrafts.
This will be catalogued to showcase Uganda’s tourism diversity.
Already tour and travel operators and hotels have established increased bookings like never before a, fact analysts attribute to increased peace and more investment in lodging and newer facilities by private sector investors.
CHOGM activities will last a whole month.
