Challenges Facing Tourism in Uganda

Challenges Facing Tourism in Uganda : Tourism in Uganda injects revenue in form of foreign currency into the financial system thus boosting the economy with 7.3% of economic development. Uganda which is naturally gifted with beautiful natural resources such as lakes, rivers, mountains, forests, cultural sites and historical sites among others and that’s why Winston Churchill named the country the pearl of Africa.

Various tourists who travel to Uganda involve themselves in many activities that contribute a lot to Uganda’s economy through paying taxes such as white-water rafting, bird watching, chimpanzee trekking, game drives, nature walks, city tours and Uganda gorilla trekking among others.

In spite of all that challenges that are facing tourism can’t be left out and this has contributed to a decline in the sector and these include the following;

Limited information; Some of the travel companies have less information to offer to the tourists in order for them to familiarize with the many beautiful sceneries in Uganda. There is even little advertisement to the outside world.

Natural calamities; these include floods, diseases, storms. These natural calamities endanger the wildlife species of the country for example the Ebola virus that was seen in the western that led to a loss of mountain gorillas in Bwindi impenetrable and chimpanzees in Kibale national park.

Poaching; increased poaching in the various national parks and game reserves has led to a reduction of wildlife such as white rhinos, elephants and hippos.

Population encroachment; various people have encroached land that is meant for national parks which affects the well being of wildlife such as cattle keepers in kiruhura have forced themselves on lake Mburo national park

Political instability; this is experienced from the LRA and ADF which scares away tourists from visiting many national parks such as kabalega national park, queen Elizabeth national park among others which reduce on the number of tourists that would wish to embark on a Uganda safari tour .

Competition with other African countries that have the same potentials like Uganda for example Kenya with its beautiful climate plus the fauna and flora. This makes tourists to go with other countries rather than Uganda, Challenges Facing Tourism in Uganda.

Hostility of some tribes; these scares away the tourists/ visitors that would have come to tour the different areas in Uganda. For example, the Karamojong’s in the northern Uganda scare tourists to come to kidepo national park.

Lack of support from the government of Uganda. With this it makes the uganda tourism board lack funds to support the firms that are under it which leads to lack of trust from the board and low development of the industry.

Poor infrastructural development; Uganda is still a developing country and various sectors are also still growing. The roads that lead to various parks are not worked on which makes them to be impassible during the rainy season which makes tourist to not go to such places. Other roads that lead tourists to their places of accommodation are also poor which results to low turn up of tourists.

Low domestic tourism due to ignorance and poverty of the locals has affected tourism. This is because they have decided to leave it for foreigners which leads to low development of the sector, Challenges Facing Tourism in Uganda.

The challenges that affect the tourism sector can be improved in many ways such as improvement in the infrastructures for easy access of the sceneries, training of various service providers, improvement in government fundings to the sector among others. With doing so the tourism sector will be boosted and thus increasing in the government revenue