Africa Safari Travel News

The Rwanda Tourism Board is seen as the best example in sub-Saharan Africa of how to organize and improve tourism development and get a workable system off the ground. Talking the fact that Rwanda has been through a traumatizing history of the 1994 genocide that saw most the Rwandese people die others being displaced, it goes without saying that Rwanda has picked the pieces from that history and now its doing well compared to Uganda that has at least been stable for some time now!

Representatives of the newly established Ugandan Tourism Board were in Kigali of recent to meet with the RTB. Chairman of UTB, Roni Madhvani, said that in although Uganda tourism is doing well and actually the fastest growing activity in country, Rwanda tourism is slightly better than Uganda, and that is evidently explained in the recently held travel market in Berlin Germany where Rwanda displayed the most attractive stole and emerged the best in Africa.

The impressive achievements in Rwanda inspired them to meet, see and share what had been achieved so far. He said that since Rwanda and Uganda had such diverse products and different markets, they could never be competition for each other. Roni told the press in a media briefing that Rwanda is a showcase in Africa with regards to infrastructure, encouraging policies and products.

Ms Grace Mbabazi of the Ugandan Ministry of Tourism, Trade & Industry told the media that four years ago they had received just over 100 000 visitors. Last year arrivals had increased to approximately 516 000 providing 35% of total foreign earnings for the country.

In his welcoming address, Ms Rosette Rugamba said that although tourism was an ever-changing industry, the goal was the same throughout Africa: to reduce poverty and create jobs. “It is an honour that you chose to come to Rwanda on this mission. African co-operation and partnerships for the advancement of the continent’s economy and the reduction of poverty is the goal of all African countries.”

African governments are now realizing the importance of tourism for job creation and are committed to developing policies to increase human-capacity building. Rwanda is willing to share information on licensing, grading, levy systems, how to collect the levies, how to enforce the policies and how to find those who are not paying their dues. In order to see to it that tourism in east Africa grows as desired.

By

   Deborah Allen Nakawojwa

Tourism in Uganda has dropped by up to 30 percent since post-election violence in neighboring Kenya rocked the region, tourism officials have reported.

“The numbers of tourists have gone down by 20 to 30 percent,” Edwin Muzahura, spokesman for the Uganda Tourist Board, told the reporters.

According to the board, tourism is the fastest-growing sector in Uganda and more than half a million arrivals in 2007 injected $375-million into the economy.

The country is a popular tourist destination thanks to its gorillas, chimpanzee sanctuaries and waterfalls. “We have suffered a lot Uganda is largely marketed through Kenya,” Muzahura said.

Foreign tour operators often organize holiday packages that include both countries, beginning on Kenya’s beaches and ending in Uganda’s gorilla-inhabited forests.

But Kenya’s December 27 elections, which saw incumbent President Mwai Kibaki re-elected in a race opposition leader Raila Odinga alleged was rigged, broke into country wide riots and tribal revenge killings.

Images of hacked Kenyans and women and children burnt alive scared off visitors during east Africa’s peak tourism season.

Close to 800 people were killed and a quarter of a million uprooted by Kenya’s political crisis. With all this, Wealthy Europeans stay away. Several European countries, including Britain and France, have issued travel advisories discouraging their citizens from non-essential travel to Kenya, and foreign travel insurance companies have pulled coverage from the area.

“When this crisis started in Kenya, tourists started asking themselves whether they should come to east Africa,” said Lillian Nsubuga, spokesperson for the Uganda Wildlife Authority. Several Uganda-Kenya packages were cancelled.

“People are now thinking to come straight to Uganda. Kenya is not an option anymore for the foreseeable future.”

But tourists who start visiting Uganda again will do so at a higher cost.

Looting and rogue checkpoints along trade routes from Kampala to the Kenyan port of Mombasa have delayed the import of fuel into landlocked Uganda and driven up fuel prices.

We’re already an expensive destination, and it was not feasible to take people on safaris at all unless they were willing to pay a fortune.

While fuel is now more readily available in Uganda, still-high prices are negatively affecting generator-run eco-lodges and game drive vehicles that rely on an increasingly unreliable fuel supply.

By: Deborah Allen Nakawojwa

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