Ugandans have been urged to guard their tourism heritage jealously and preserve its wildlife.
This was during a visit by Canadian travel agents who had come to see Uganda’s tourism potential.
During the visit, the travel agents were asked for their honest opinions about Uganda and tourism in Uganda as a way of helping the sector improve.
The 11 travel agents from Canada took the bait and visited Uganda last week and were hosted by the Uganda Tourism Board (UTB).
The Board wanted to get the opinion of the tourists and also counter all the negative publicity the country has been receiving since the passing of the anti-gay law.
The negative publicity from the law has had a pretty devastating effect on Uganda’s tourism industry and Africa as a whole especially with threats of cutting aid coming from all directions.
The European countries have since opted for dialogue though.
Speaking to the guests at the Carnival Restaurant in Naguru Kampala, the Uganda Wildlife Authority’s Dr Andrew Seguya, said the country was avoiding mass tourism in order to preserve its heritage.
He gave an example of Uganda Wildlife Authority which has limited the number of visitors entering the parks or the number of people on gorilla tracking trips as a way of preserving and conserving its wildlife.
The UTB chief, Stephen Asiimwe also asked the travel specialists to encourage and promote Uganda as a tourist destination for their American and Canadian clients.
He highlighted a few things that make Uganda such a good safari destination, such as the snow capped mountains, the river Nile, Murchison falls.
One of the team’s senior officers Daniel Gordon Brown acknowledged Uganda’s fabulous tourism potential and the need to exploit it. He encouraged investment in tourism saying that there was more money to be earned in tourism than in any other sector.
