Making tourism work for Uganda

                           Making tourism work for Uganda

With the recent trend of nations increasingly looking inward, putting in place barriers to trade and movement of people, the role of Travel & Tourism has now more than ever become even more significant as an engine of economic development. It has become a vehicle for sharing cultures, creating peace and building mutual understanding.At a global level, the role of Travel and tourism has become even more significant as an engine of economic development. A world tourism and travel study in 2017 revealed that the direct travel and tourism not only outperformed the economy- wide growth, but also was stronger than the growth recorded in all other major sectors of the economy.

In Uganda’s context, Tourism is arguably a key driver of our economy as the leading foreign exchange earner generating over USD 1.35 Billion (23.5 percent of total exports) and contributing about 2.8 percent of total employment (UBOS 2015). The sector is even forecast to rise by up to 10 percent of GDP by 2025(WTTC, 2025).Our  aspiration is to further increase foreign exchange earnings from this sector  to USD 12 billion by 2040(NPA, 2010). The NDP II has also prioritised tourism among other sectors such as agriculture and minerals including oil and gas in what it summarizes as the “ATMS of Uganda’s growth and transformation”

There is no doubt the sector has the widest value chain with the potential to provide direct and indirect employment of approximately 2 million jobs as a result of linkages with other sectors. The progressive improvement of living conditions and the emergence of a Ugandan middle class also present an enormous potential market with numerous opportunities for the region. The question will  then remain  on how Uganda will  harness the great potential this sector presents to create jobs at a faster rate, expand incomes of all Ugandans and increase revenues available to the government to finance services for residents (education and Health, infrastructure, defence and security, social protection) and improve the quality of life for all Ugandans

There are many things we need to re understand and appreciate about this sector if we are to harness its potential. A few among these is what i intend to discuss in this piece with hope to refresh our minds and perception towards how best we can handle this industry 

The first and most important thing to note is that the income elasticity of demand for travel and tourism is high. So for most people in countries, overseas, travel has a strongly positive income elasticity of demand. This simply means demand rises more than proportionate to people’s real incomes thus posing the biggest opportunity for poor countries to leverage

This sector is also poised to generate employment and income, lead to a positive tourism balance of payments, stimulate the supplying sectors of tourism, and lead to a generally increased level of economic activity in the country, but other scholars under the dependency school of thought argues that tourism is an exploitative activity as it is dependent on foreign resources for its development. To back this argument, they explain that tourists who come from foreign countries, come  on trips organized and sold by the foreign travel trade, travel usually on foreign-owned airlines, often stay in foreign-owned accommodation, and use goods and services which were largely imported. And this is where the challenge of economic leakages of tourism revenues to foreign owners comes in.

Second thing to reconsider giving thought is Media. Ugandan media has published several articles concerning tourism with intention to enlighten people more about the different animal species and tourism destinations, travel articles that reflect the travel experiences in different sites, national parks towns. All these aimed at marketing Uganda’s tourism attractions, but unfortunately, like many developing worlds, Uganda’s tourism media has a lot to be desired. Key to note is that a vast majority of travel decisions are made by people who have never seen their intended destinations first hand for themselves and to make these decisions they use information from multiple sources of media like TV, radio, books magazines, movies and internet. These Tourists  will choose destinations firstly because of what they have heard  or seen in media, before seeking specialized assistance as regards accommodation, tour arrangements and tour guide support.yet in Uganda, we admonish the   perception created of continuing insecurity in the country. A targeted and effective marketing campaign is needed to combat these images. We need to keep in mind that the greater the destination positioning and brand recall, the greater the chance of attracting new tourists.

Another important aspect to note about this sector is that it has the ability to absorb more women (an often neglected group in developing countries) as well as young unskilled people because it has a low threshold skills entry barrier. Nonetheless, there’s raising concern with the strong evidence of a lack of skilled labour in the sector, and the tendency to create several social vices in the name of generating employment like child prostitution as witnessed in Kenya, Thailand and Sri Lanka. These further generate negative impacts such as increase in teenage pregnancy, single parenthood, and the breakdown of the moral fabric of society as suggested in the tourism planning in Developing Countries 2013 study 

As I conclude, much as the tourism sector is the dominant sector in terms of foreign exchange receipts to Ugandan economy, and is reflected in the national development aspirations and priorities. It should not be regarded as a stand-alone sector because it is affected by many other sector policies

Emmanuel Nambaale
Economic Hub Uganda ltd
P.O Box 1337, Kampala- Uganda | Tel +256779373114/+256703744999 |
Email:economichubuganda@gmail.com|enambaale@gmail.com; 
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