How far does our tourism have to be a success?

Uganda has received a lot of praises especially in tourism sector. The problem is; little seems to be done about this.

The last two years have raised Uganda’s tourism potential to the world stage, one of the biggest of these being the 2011 endorsement by the world’s largest travel guide book publisher, Lonely Planet. It voted Uganda as number one destination to visit for the year 2012, basing on its natural beauty of sprawling landscape, wildlife, fauna and flora. Birding excursions, lake cruises and culinary adventures.

 This opened way for more recognition. Ideally this set the stage for Uganda to shine by exploiting the attention the attention drawn to it by engaging in a vigorous marketing Champaign to splash out all it offers and is naturally endowed.

Uganda a spending giant

In the words of the executive director of Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA), Dr. Andrew Seguya, the peal of Africa is a sleeping a giant that id yet to wake up. “Uganda remains that giant, so big, so strong, so capable of moving mountains but guess what… it is sleeping. It does not matter how strong you are, what capabilities you have if you are, what capabilities you have, if you are sleeping, your brain is sleeping. It is until you wake up and you put your brains to work and you put your muscles to move things that you actually became a giant,” he argues, and as Uganda tosses and turns in its sleep, its neighbors who have only a fraction of what it possesses are keeping their eyes wide open, making the most of their tourism packages.

Not that there are enough resources to market what we have.
Uganda tourism board (UTB), the body in charge of marketing Uganda’s tourism sector hardly has a budget to sustain itself. Cuthbrt Baguma, Executive Director of UTB in a recent interview with EA Business explains, “UTB budget declined from Shs2.05b approximately $1m in the financial year 2011/2012 to Shs1.42b approximately $ 0.568m in the financial year 2012/2013 and further declined to Shs1.4b approximately US$0.56million in 2013/2014.”

The minister of finance distributes national resources to different ministries; Maria Kiwanuka proposed an 18 per cent value added tax increment on accommodation which irked players in the tourism sector. But the ministry spokesman, Jim Mugunga says this increment is meant to cater for improvement in the road and other infrastructure that can aid growth of tourism. “But if we are going to do the roads that make it easy for tourists to reach the destinations, we have to collect taxes, so I think the bigger picture should be looked  at objectively and accepted as one of those solutions that must be in place for the tourism sector to grow,” Mugunga argued.

Need to revise strategies

Hebert Byaruhanga, the President of the Uganda Tourism Association (UTA), states that whereas government has the bigger role of developing infrastructure, the ministry has to study its marketing strategy too. “We still need more effort to create means of strategic marketing with the meager resources that we have” he says. Seguya agrees with Byaruhanga that there are basic tenets of marketing. “You have to communicate your products, develop and communicate them regionally – under the East African Platform, under the African Union, and then in the international world,” he explains. He says that Uganda needs to put her adverts out there, with dedicated people to build the brand of the country internationally. He adds, “Many countries have employed agencies in source markets so that those agents on a full time basis communicate her brand of the country, you have to have access to those markets through attending meetings, special shows, the bird shows, the street show etc.”

Amos Wekesa another entrepreneur in the industry says the tourism ministry needs to position herself strategically because she is already disadvantaged. “When you look at the bigger picture, East Africa has got 100,000 beds/ rooms. 80,000 of these rooms are in Kenya and the rest of the 20,000 beds are shared among Tanzania, Uganda and Rwanda. The leading owner of these 20,000 in Tanzania followed by Uganda then Rwanda which is about to overtake us,” Wekesa states.

Mugunga is sure the government is going to deliver on its part, of developing the infrastructure. “How prepared are they to use the improvements to match up the competition? We need to sort out the infrastructure that makes the cost of doing business tourism very expensive,” he says

Branding is important

Seguya is emphatic that in the face of competition next door it will take more than infrastructural development to get Uganda its due attention. He argues that Uganda needs to advertise at big events like forth coming World Cup next year. He says, “Building Brand is somethibg that is well known and definitely costs money and we are not putting in that money. We need to build the brand of Uganda.” However Byaruhanga says that the sector should not wait on government.

“We cannot expect the government to pour huge sums of money into the sector without justification. If you want a Doctor to treat your wound, show it to him,” he argues. He adds, “We need to create standards for the sector that do not derail us from our brand. While we are gifted by by nature we must walk the talk. Our standards and services should bear out brand which will give us an advantage over others Uganda’s challenging history is an opportunity for the tourism industry.”

Wekesa says the big boys need to come on board. “ofcourse you need to have people like Madhvanis, Patrick Bitature, BMK. The Kenya tourism Federation is actually run by people who have the most money because you have to invest money in tourism to be able to attract attention you need,” he exprains.

The way is pretty clear. Half of the problem, if you like, is solved. The other half entails all the big prayers getting together and coming up with actions that will propel the country’s tourism sector.

By Bruce Amp