One of the Gorilla males
in Nkuringo sector of Bwindi national Park.
President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni has asked Ugandans to develop a spirit of tourism and adventure as one
of the ways of promoting sustainable tourism.
Celebrating World Tourism Day at Boma grounds
in Fort Portal on Friday, the president, in a speech read on his behalf by
defense minister Muruli Mukasa, said tourism is an exciting activity that
arouses interest in everyone because its entails exploring new frontiers.
The day was marked under the theme “Tourism
and Water protecting our common future”
Museveni said Fort Portal has been projected
as the tourism city in the Vision 2040 because the region is endowed with
plenty of attractive geographical features, climate, forests and the people.
But he still challenged the people of the area
to work hard towards fulfilling the benchmarks government has put in place
which include infrastructure development.
“We should not look at the visitors only,” he
said. “We should also look at ourselves here as potential and actual consumers
of tourism in this country.
“It is only in that way that we can sustain
the tourism potential that is so abundant in this region and support Fort
Portal as a tourist city.”
According to Museveni, tourism is the major
consumer of water and therefore the protection of water bodies is of great
importance to the survival and growth of the tourism industry.
In his speech, the statesman stressed the need
for local governments to improve accessibility and infrastructure to tourism
sites and challenged entrepreneurs to involve the local population to solve the
problem of unemployment.
The minister of tourism, Maria Mutagamba said
her industry has grown by 23% despite global economic challenges.
On his part, the king of Toro, Oyo Nyimba
Kabamba Iguru appealed to the central government and the private sector to
partner with his kingdom and invest in areas of ICT, tourism, agro processing,
fish processing among others.
“Toro is the greatest tourism attraction in
the country with a wide range of bird spices and the highest chimpanzee
population in East Africa and I invite government and the private sector and
other development partners to come and invest in Toro” appealed the youthful king.
By Bruce Amp
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