Quack guides: A problem to tourism

The tourism industry must weed out quack guides to maintain standards. Photo by Edgar R Batte

The problem of quack tour guides has been growing in Uganda’s tourism industry.

And it is gradually making the tourism experience for many tourists hell on earth.
You have heard tourists booked in wrong accommodation or a wrong trekking permit.

This is the challenge that has come with quack tour guides who dupe tourists.
Tourism as an industry has become a serious revenue earner. Therefore, protecting it from quacks is ultimately important.

Currently, the industry contributes 10 per cent to gross domestic product, making it Uganda’s largest foreign exchange earner. The industry rakes in more than $1.4b (Shs5.1 trillion) annually and is projected to earn about Shs10 trillion ($2.4b) by 2020.

And all this is done by different stakeholders but it all starts with tour guides and cannot be under estimated.
However, in order to meet the new projections, the tour guides chain must be streamlined to weed out quacks.

Therefore, Uganda Safaris and Guides Association have urged government to fix the loopholes in the Tourism Act 2008.
According to Herbert Byaruhanga, the Uganda Safaris and Guides Association outgoing chairman, the existing Act has loopholes and allows any person to just walk in and set up a guide or tour operator without vetting,”
This, Byaruhanga says, allows quacks to exploit the loopholes to con tourists, which not only hurts the industry but the country’s economy.

“Because we are looking for investors, we just accept anyone. This affects the performance and image of the country,” he says.
Therefore, he says, government must fast-track the review of the Tourism Act to protect the industry.

Reforms such as instituting the Tourism Police, he says, must be realigned with government targets by training different stakeholders.

However, it cannot all be left to government because, according to Ephraim Kamuntu, the Tourism minister, the Uganda Safaris and Guides Association must isolate quacks and report those flouting required standards.

“Because you are the first contact with the visitors, your good behavior will give the country a good name,” he says.
Johnnie Kamugisha, the new Uganda Safaris and Guides Association chairperson believes that it is only professionalism that will help to grow tourism numbers in Uganda.