Building Tourism Excellence at the Community Level: Capacity Building for Community-Based Entrepreneurs in Uganda

Abstract

The recuperation of tourism in Uganda will be a slow process. The tourist industry must overcome years of neglect, bad publicity, and the devastation of its most treasured tourism products—its wildlife and natural beauty. With tourism's resurgence, it will be important for people living around Uganda's natural areas to benefit economically from the existence of those areas and from the potential tourist income. Tourism offers the only legal avenue by which people living in rural communities can derive economic benefits from wildlife. However, most rural entrepreneurs and community organizations interested in the tourist market possess neither the skills nor the know-how to operate successful tourism establishments. This article describes a training program aimed at building those skills and establishing strong institutional linkages to ensure the existence of a viable community-based tourism sector so that Uganda's nature based tourism embraces ecotourism principles, with benefits accruing to those most affected by wildlife.