Tourism in Uganda must empower local communities
UTB will also be mandated to set up a register of all tourism products and services and licence operations that meet minimum customer service, health and safety standards.
Commenting on the development during his address the just concluded 4th International Institute for Peace through Tourism African Conference in Kampala, president Museveni said the new law would create the legal and institutional framework for sustainable tourism development.
“Lack of a strong law has allowed the amorphous growth of the industry with low regard to standards and disharmony with international best practices and stagnation of key tourism resources. This has affected productivity and competitiveness of the sector,” Museveni said adding that the law would also place an accent the principles of sustainable development and empowerment of local communities to take advantage of the industry to fight poverty.
Citing international statistics that showed a tourist spend of $683 billion in 2005; Museveni said government recognized the industry’s potential to create jobs. “The question that we have been slow to answer is why in spite of the natural and cultural endowments, and peace, our country has not fully utilised and benefited from this tourism resource. We have closely examined this question and developed a strategy that will enhance our competitiveness in the international tourism market.”
Among strategies being pursued in creation of awareness among local communities recognise the tourism potential of the natural and cultural endowments in their midst and get local authorities to include tourism development in their planning.
This will be accompanied by improving tourism and development of domestic tourism as a buffer against fickle international markets. Commenting on the continuing negative perception of Africa as a region of war and conflict, the president said the continents future outlook was largely positive with war and conflict on the wane despite a couple of lingering hotspots on the continent.
Museveni argued that the odds favoured peace and conflict was largely dissipating in spite of the current strife in Somalia and Sudan. “I have been intimately involved in the affairs of this part of the world for 42 years now and I can tell you that compared to 1970, Africa has today got less conflict or potential conflict. That image is not true any more,” Museveni said.
He describes the ongoing strife in Sudan’s Darfur region and Somalia as localised ethnic conflicts saying “conflict or the potential for it were much stronger then than now. True there are some conflicts still going on but these are on their way out and there is no major conflict in Africa now. There has been a problem in Sudan between Africans and the Arabs but that conflict is now resolved. The whole of southern Africa is now peaceful. Zimbabwe has problems but they are of a different nature and not armed conflict as such.”
The conference, that attracted close to 300 delegates including tourism stakeholders, representatives of African governments, development partners and the African diaspora discussed issues and problems surrounding tourism development in Africa.
Running under the theme of “Building Strategic Alliances Towards Sustainable Tourism Development, Peace and Reconciliation on the African Continent,” the conference examined the potential of tourism as a tool for poverty eradication and peace building on continent that is haunted by an image of hunger, strife an ddisease.
Museveni said Uganda has had its own share of conflict in the past but peace has been restored and there were ongoing efforts to consolidate it.
Confidence in Uganda has recently returned on the back of improved security across the country and the ongoing peace talks with rebels of the Lords Resistance Army that have seen calm reign over most of northern Uganda for the past two years.