New cities will boost tourism

Hippos taking an afternoon swim along the Kazinga Channel. Photo by Edgar R. Batte

What you need to know:

Kasese and Fort Portal are about 70 kilometres apart and they both host some of the world’s best tourism attractions such as Mountain Rwenzori, Kibale National Park, Queen Elizabeth National Park, Lake Edward and Lake George, Semuliki National Park and Semuliki game reserve.

The best news that has come out of Cabinet this week is the formation of new cities such as Arua, Mbarara, Gulu, Fort Portal and Jinja. According to government these new cities will be operational starting July 1, 2020. The second phase will see Mbale and Hoima become cities by July 1, 2021 while Entebbe and Lira will become cities on July 1, 2022. Uganda in many ways has had slow growth because of having only one city where everything has been expected to be done.
Sixty seven per cent of Uganda’s business is happening in this one city called Kampala and it has had a lot of pressure in infrastructure partly because of the rural urban migration.

The formation of other cities is going to help in decongestion of Kampala because business is going to be wide spread across the country with time. The new cities will attract improved healthcare, education and other social services that have been attracting people to Kampala.
The Ugandan youth before 1962 had Independence as the major focus because that occupied their mind and a few years after because of the political challenges.

The youth of the time had a secure environment as their major focus. The youth now have economic empowerment as their major desire and that couldn’t happen in Kampala.
The greatest advantage of Uganda is wide distribution of potential opportunities which include fertile soils, minerals and tourism attractions.
The formation of cities will spur proper utilisation of that same potential hence creating jobs especially for the youth and women.
Anyway, desire today is all about forming Uganda’s first tourism city comprising Kasese and Fort Portal. Every serious country in the world has got a tourism city and yes, some are clearly marked out and others are silent.

The combination of Kasese and Fort Portal would create what I will choose to call the Arusha of Uganda.
Arusha and Moshi combined have taken massive advantage of the north tourism circuit of Tanzania composed of Mountain Kilimanjaro, Seregenti National Park, Ngorogoro Crater, Lake Manyara and Taragiire National Park.
While in Arusha and Moshi one will clearly see how tourism has created opportunities from hotel owners, guides, malls, restaurants, and safari car engineering firms.

Kasese and Fort Portal are about 70 kilometres apart and they both host some of the world’s best tourism attractions such as Mountain Rwenzori, Kibale National Park, Queen Elizabeth National Park, Lake Edward and Lake George, Semuliki National Park and Semuliki game reserve.
These two places have crater lakes that have not been exploited at all for tourism purpose. They have forest primates such as chimpanzees.
Queen Elizabeth National Park is about 1,978 kilometres squared and was gazetted in 1952 as Kazinga Channel National Park.

This park offers a visitor massive tourism opportunities including game drives, chimpanzees trekking in Kyambura, forest walks in Maragambo, local salt mining experiences in Katwe area and not forgetting the many crater lakes in there.
The park have more than 600 species of birds just a few species less than the US which has 778. Kibale National Park is also called the world capital of primates because its one park with the highest concentration of primates in any protected space in the world.

Kibale National Park has attracted lots of investment opportunities in the hospitality space, providing hundreds of jobs to both youths and women and those include accommodations, crafts centres, restaurants, guiding opportunities, hospitality training school which have mushroomed near the forest etc.
When I get more time, I will write about the other attractions such as the Rwenzoris, Semuliki National Park, crater lakes and the tropical rainforests.

The writer is an investment expert and ceo at Great Lake safaris and Uganda lodges
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