Regional Promotion: The only choice
By Elisha Mayallah
Some few months ago, a flight
took me out of the Kilimanjaro sky and the Tanzania airspace and then across
Lake Victoria to our final destination of that day, Entebbe International
Airport.
Entebbe International Airport is located 45 kilometres from Kampala, the capital
city of Uganda. There is a serious security check at the airport following
terrorist activities across the world.
I was visiting Kampala to explore and tie up the business potential for our
chain of hotels. I have been to Kampala before, on the in and out visits,
meeting people of various backgrounds.
This time it was to be different, and what better place to have a series of
meetings during a day layover than at The Nile International! The road into the
Kampala City from Entebbe showed many likenesses to say the road from
Kilimanjaro International Airport into Arusha town, with trees partly lining the
roads, food stalls, hardware and other assorted shops.
Traffic from Entebbe to Kampala is best described as ‘exotic' with public
transport (Kamunye as it is called by the Baganda) in hundreds finding their way
in and out, at times forming a long traffic jam.
Courtesy in traffic seemed totally lost at the expense of "the faster the car
the more aggressive the driving'. The traffic police were struggling to keep the
flow going. And one in particular was holding an umbrella to shield himself from
the scorching sun, while using his free hand to regulate and direct the tide of
humanity, cycles, rickshaws and cars of all descriptions.
Security was visible throughout the way up to the hotel, and most impressive
outside the Nile Hotel International, where traffic was allowed to pass under
the watchful eyes of alert security guards. The Kampala City holds up to 2
million inhabitants, equivalent to ten per cent of the estimated population of
24 millions Ugandans.
And with this all said, various drivers of cars that I used during my stay in
Kampala all confirmed that security was good for foreigners. However, it may be
not so good to see a horde of security staff holding guns nearly after every
building. They all conceded that political topics are better stayed clear off.
Close to our hotel, the nearby hotel – The Kampala Sheraton – was undergoing
some renovation work, some few staff at the restaurant were at hand to greet us
and offer some explanations during our lunch.
To many Ugandans the urge to visit Tanzania is always in their mind except there
are many financial needs, which outweigh the holiday wish. The Managing Director
of Africa Travel, Mr. Jack Wavamunno, revealed this to me. "The Government is
tied to rehabilitate the economy and allure in more investments," added Mr.
Wavamunno.
Mr. Ignatius Nakishero, the Sales and Marketing Manager at the Uganda Tourist
Board, and his team spared me some time to discuss the tourism attractions in
Uganda and opportunities for packaging of tourist offers in the region. The East
African region market, with a population of about 90 million, is slowly opening
to global economic trends. The most recent visitors figures available show total
foreign arrivals in the year 2000 to just below 250,000 marks and their leading
tour operator handling less than 5000 tourists per year. Such figures are lower,
but made me understand better on why promoting regional tourism is of prime
importance.
It was clearly becoming more interesting as the talk went on about Uganda. And
left me, as often as before, with that nagging feeling that I wanted to remain
behind and explore some more, and see for myself the attractions described to
me.
Most of the foreign arrivals in Kampala are business people, NGO's staff,
International Organization staff and many others. There seems to be a scope to
investments and get ready for the tourism harvest when the security threat in
the north of the country is achieved. Then Uganda will start to attract larger
numbers of visitors.
As for Uganda, which has much potential to adventure and Eco-tourism, but hardly
tapped so far, probably needs few years to start seeing positive tourism
developments.
One of the local attractions in the capital city is the famous Club Obbligato,
where live performances of different tribes perform on weekends. The Afrigo Band
is the resident band and is a big crowd-puller.
A few hotels and lodges have opened in the recent past, aimed at attracting
tourists, if not from overseas at least from The East African member states, in
particular the expatriate community.
Friendly smiles and much shoulder patting saw me off after I had finished my
business meetings, and the route before take off took us across the Kampala city
for a Lake Victoria scenery look at The Speke Resort, Munyonyo.
Speke Resort, Munyonyo is a destination for everyone visiting Kampala, certainly
not for any form of mass tourism, but for adventurers, the seekers of solitude
along the remote shore of the lake, this is a place worth a visit.
E-mail:
ermayallah@yahoo.com,
ermayallah@hotmail.com
