Tourism Promises

3 promises

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We will:

Review infrastructural projects to see that the road network, water as well as air travel can be improved in order to increase the number of visitors coming to our country.
Institute a government program in all 13 key tourist districts in Uganda where specially trained officers handle coordination with local communities, licensing of hotels and commercial tourist activity providers, reporting and collection of statistics.
Assess the current levels of hospitality skills and invest more in the Hotel and Tourism Training Institute (HTTI) to increase the number of students that can be trained each year. Today, HTTI is the only institute in Uganda that enjoys a post-graduate employment rate of 100%. Therefore, if more people are able to graduate from HTTI, more young people will get jobs in the hospitality industry.
Invest in wetland-based eco-tourism and the protection of forest reserves.
Upgrade utilities in all National Parks such as toilets, offices, ranger outposts, communications equipment and rescue services. We will also improve existing and create new hiking trails in different places.
We will enter into PPPs (Public Private Partnerships) to manage portions of the national parks as well as restock the wildlife population.
Reduce human-wildlife conflict by creating transparent and timely revenue sharing programs with local communities thereby encouraging them to be active in conservation efforts.
Invest in marketing and public relations targeting specific countries to attract more tourists. This will be done after studying and determining the most attractive markets.
Invest in cultural and religious sites to attract more tourists.

Diversify our tourism bracket

Invest 3% of the National Budget in the Tourism Sector for the next five years and identify, gazette, develop and diversify untapped tourism attractions in the country.
Identify and develop Heritage tourism by identifying all heritages sites and promoting our rich cultural traditions and traditional institutions as tourist attractions.
Our government will commit annually 1% of the National Budget towards traditional institutions as part of the strategy to integrate cultural in National development.
Establish the Cultural Development and Creative Industry Authority. This will coordinate the development of various processes that are critical to the value chain of producing cultural products including instituting State of the art National Film production centres and National theaters, streamlining and strengthening copyright legislation and its implementation to provide greater protection and compliance and the promotion mechanisms and appropriate marketing for culture and creative industry both locally and internationally.
Establish a National Cultural Museum as a means of promoting and preserving the entire cultural diversity in the country.
Promote a National Cultural Festival to serve as a vehicle for unearthing the culture and showcase the rich cultural heritage and talents in the country.
Develop a ‘Uganda Village’ as a continued strategy to showcase Uganda and her rich heritage.
Develop a National Geographical Centre that reveals the glorious national endowment for education and tourism.
Profile all key personalities and events in Uganda and use them to construct and establish Libraries and Museums to attract both local and international tourists.

Conference tourism

Strengthen Uganda’s new position as a conference destination in the region and on the African continent by supporting the construction of State of the art Convention Centers to attract more conferences in the country.

Sports tourism

Assert Uganda as a Sports destination on the African continent with capacity to host major sports events. Our government will invest in the construction of five State of the art stadia with all facilities for the most attractive games including football, rugby, tennis, boxing, cricket, basketball, and netball.
Our government will invest appropriately in the Sports industry as means of a show case of Uganda and an employment industry for the youth.

Wildlife tourism

Strengthen Uganda’s position as a wildlife destination by preserving and developing all the National parks and reserves.
Invest heavily in the research and technologies for the preservation and multiplication of the endangered wildlife species.
Develop the necessary infrastructure to enable easier access and provide high quality accommodation within the wildlife centers.
Promote game ranching in order to increase wildlife attractions, avail game meat and game hunting.
Our government will revamp the existing Zoo and institute a State of the art Tropical National Aquarium for ornamental and biodiversity tourism, and conservation purposes.

Entertainment tourism

Tap into Uganda’s tropical climate as an asset to promote Uganda as a holiday destination of the world.
Our government will identify and develop all locations with leisure and entertainment potential including ‘Greater Lake Victoria’ cruising and ‘Crater lakes expo’; Tropical Botanical Gardens with unique flora gardens; and expressly designed African Organic Cuisine Restaurants as a way to expand on the leisure alternatives in the country. Other recreation facilities will be developed on key sites like the Great Lake Victoria, Rwenzori and Kigezi highland regions. Islands and beaches will be developed into luxurious facilities deliberately for this purpose.

Accommodation and hospitality

Pursue the development of a Hospitality College in one of the existing universities to train persons in the tourism sector.
Support and extend incentives for construction of new hotels and entertainment centers and provide grants and concessionary loans for the upgrading of small hotels.

Shopping tourism

Establish a duty free ‘Mutukula Border Zone’ to strategically meet the region demands as a way to position Uganda as a Region shopping hub.

Funding tourism promotion and marketing will be further increased to enhance presence in the existing tourism source markets of Europe and USA and intensified in new sources such as China. Enhance commercial diplomacy to increase focus on tourism promotion and marketing by Uganda’s missions abroad. Also, strengthen the Uganda Tourism Board (UTB) to tell the story of Uganda’s tourist attractions to the world and also invite world celebrities to tour Uganda at our cost as part of tourism promotion. In addition, give UTB targets to accomplish every year.
Continue with the programmes of branding the country and its tourism products, including continuing to work on improving the image of the country abroad which was damaged by past leaders.
Upgrade the Hotel Tourism Training Institute at Jinja to international standards to facilitate adequate skilling in the hospitality industry
Assess the possibility of establishing a national airline with the aim of facilitating the development of Entebbe International Airport into a regional hub, direct connectivity of the country to the major existing and upcoming markets for tourists to Uganda, and promoting the export of high value agricultural products.
Continue with wildlife conservation and preservation of cultural heritage for sustainable tourism, environmental protection and sustainable use by communities neighbouring protected areas.
Expand and develop Namugongo Martyrs’ shrine into an elaborate and inter-connected tourism centre and trail, under the Public Private Partnership (PPP) arrangements, with the view to make it an all-year round domestic and international tourists’ destination.
Redevelop the Source of the Nile as a world-class tourist attraction site and turn it into a modern international and domestic tourism centre.
Develop Kalagala and Itanda tourism sites under PPP arrangements.
Promote water sport on lakes and rivers to attract tourists.
Support the Uganda Wildlife Education Centre to establish a marina and operationalise a tourism circuit on Lake Victoria as part of the domestic and international tourism development.
Design and construct a high-level bridge at Murchison Falls, as additional scenery for tourism promotion.
Develop new products, as part of the tourism diversification drive, including construction of canopy walk bridges in the Bwindi and Kibaale national parks to ease animal viewing.
Support the design and redevelopment of Kabaka’s Lake as an international urban tourism site.
Support construction of additional accommodation infrastructure in the national parks by giving incentives to investors already providing hotel services in the parks to expand. Among others we will remove the exclusion zones in Queen Elizabeth and Murchison Falls national parks and gazette areas for hotels only.
Excavate about 30km of trenches every year in order to reduce the problem of human — wildlife conflicts and also erect an electrical fence in some sections as deemed appropriate.
Develop infrastructure on Mt. Rwenzori by attracting investors to establish cable cars and zip lines.
Continue to support the regional tourism promotion clusters, including supporting the development of district and zonal tourism associations in key tourism areas of the country in order to enhance compliance to set standards, joint marketing, self-regulation, capacity building and development of the gift and crafts industry.
Support the media to play an effective positive role in the promotion and marketing of tourism within the country and abroad. This will minimise negative and sensational reporting in the media.
Invest in and promote sports to enhance the marketing of Uganda when our sportsmen and sportswomen excel.