CNN's $1m Project Leaves Uganda Tourist Board Broke
New Vision (Kampala)
David Muwanga / Kampala
ACTIVITY at Uganda Tourist Board (UTB) has ground to a near halt after a promotional budget they were supposed to tap into was all allocated to a six-month advertising campaign on CNN.
For the first time in the 10-year existence of UTB, a budgetary allocation of sh2b was made towards promotional and infrastructure development activities.
However, press reports last month, which have not been denied by the tourism ministry, said the Government was going to shell out $1m (about sh1.9b) for advertising on CNN.
According to figures 500,000 tourists visited Uganda last year, from less than a 100,000 ten years ago.
Expectations are that barring any regional insecurity threats, the figure can double over the next decade.
"The tourism ministry has been lobbying for a tourism promotion budget but instead of allocating the sh2b to the Board, the money has been given to CNN," an industry source said.
UTB was created in 1994 to market and popularise Uganda as a tourist destination but the Government has only contributed towards renting premises, salaries and utility bills with donors footing the promotional budget.
However, government officials deny that there is any problem and hail the CNN deal as a welcome initiative.
"Those funds have nothing to do with the UTB budget. UTB has a separate budget. It's only that the salaries are remitted through the ministry's account," Dr. Sam Nahamya, the ministry's permanent secretary said.
James Bahinguza, UTB's chief said, "We have a sh500m annual budget. We are short of money but not starving.
"Everyone wishes Uganda to appear in international channels but it's a very expensive activity. "But that is the best form of promoting Uganda."
"Whereas countries are opening up tourist information offices, the Board has been stopped from marketing tourist opportunities in South Africa, Sweden and Italy. Even our salaries have not been increased since 1995."
UTB's sales and marketing department is non-existent, as they have not replaced former marketing manager Ignatius Nagishero, who resigned a year ago. The public relations office too has no manager and there has been no board of directors for the last three years.
Industry sources think the money could have been better spent.
"We have no updated brochures about Uganda in our embassies abroad,"
"Taking a leaf from Kenya other than advertising, they organised international exhibitions, made information available on tourism opportunities by bringing in travel journalists and opinion leaders that is more effective than an advertising campaign," a source said.
A planned permanent display at London's Uganda House has been shelved for lack of funds.
But UTB's funding need not be even drawn from the Treasury. In Tanzania, the equivalent of the Wildlife Authority contributes to the tourist board's budgets, while in other countries, a small charge is placed on hotel rooms and airport tax.
Money alone can’t redeem Uganda’s dented image!
Wednesday, 12th October, 2005
Opiyo Oloya:
PERSPECTIVE OF A UGANDAN IN CANADA
Depending on what happens in the next six months, the bank-breaking strategy by the Uganda Tourist Board (UTB) to market the country on CNN will be seen as brilliant or mud. The idea is certainly a bold and modern equivalent of roadside billboard that trumpets the beauty of a product to passersby, in this case, a tropical paradise.
As the global billboard that reaches billions of potential visitors looking for sweet vacation getaway spots, CNN will run ‘Sights and Sounds of Uganda’ from the middle of this month through to mid-April which is coincidentally the beginning of the tourist season in Europe and North America. In fact, the plan to market Uganda to the world employs the ‘big bang’ formula used by cities and regions emerging from tough times of war, epidemic, natural disaster and economic depression.
For instance, in the aftermath of the September 11 terrorists attack on New York, city leaders moved swiftly to keep people coming to the beleaguered city. Mayor Rudy Giuliani authorised $2.5m to buy 50,000 theatre tickets at reduced prices to be given to the families of those affected by the attack and some to shoppers who spent $500 in city stores.
Hard-nosed advertisements throughout the USA, Canada and Europe beckoned nervous visitors to defy the terrorists by visiting the still smouldering city. Many responded and New York is experiencing a big boom in tourism. Meanwhile, after the SARS outbreak in April 2003 in Toronto which killed 41 people, hotel occupancy rates dropped to less than 50 per cent. The overall revenue in Toronto’s four billion-dollar a year tourist industry fell by more than $300m that year. To jumpstart recovery, the city developed a five-year Tourism Development Action Plan, and the Ontario government fronted immediate 10.7m US dollars to Tourism Toronto to market the city as a fun, safe, top-of-the-line business and leisure destination. That summer, the largest ever Canadian rock concert in an abandoned airfield headlined by Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones, drew an estimated half million audience. The message to the globe was very simple — Toronto is open for business.
Hit by four major hurricanes last year and several times this year including Katrina, Florida began luring scared tourists back to the Sunshine State by launching a multi-million dollar advertising campaign to reassure tourists and convention planners that it is okay to come to the state. So far, the plan is working. By comparison, Uganda suffers a layer of negative images dating back to the dictatorial years of Idi Amin, through the mid-1980s images of skull and bone stacked along the roadside in Luweero, to the current never-ending war in northern Uganda. The pictures of cute little children scurrying at dusk to town-centres to find temporary refuge from marauding rebels hardly inspire confidence in tourists.
Next week, Uganda’s bleeding image will suffer further body blow on Saturday October 22 when more than 40 cities worldwide join the Canadian-led Guluwalk to draw attention to the plight of children in northern Uganda. In fact, the US State Department — considered the oracle by many Americans and non-Americans planning travel to world trouble-spots — has a travel advisory warning would-be travellers to Uganda to “be aware of threats to their safety from insurgent groups...”
Notwithstanding the argument that the Sheraton Kampala is probably safer than New York’s Waldorf-Astoria from potential terror activity, the average sun-loving North American, Japanese, Canadian, Australian or European planning a hassle-free fun-packed vacation, would choose the risk-free break in Aruba or the Bahamas over Uganda’s natural beauty stalked by machine-gun totting rebels.
What this means is that crafting a spanking new image for Uganda abroad is no small potato requiring more than the $1 paid to CNN so far. Foremost, the best boost to Uganda’s image abroad will be the swift conclusion to the 19-year northern war that continues unabated.
Moreover, things will brighten considerably for the entire country with the resettlement to their former villages of citizens currently wasting away in Internally Displaced Camps in northern Uganda. What better opportunity to spread the good news of the new Uganda than to invite a beaming Oprah Winfrey, arguably the most powerful media personality today, and the world media to bid them farewell as they exit the gate of the camps! The photo-op alone is worth at least $100m in free advertisement because its immediate positive message on vacationing middle class Americans, Canadians and Europeans is that Uganda, once thought dead like Lazarus, lives again. Secondly, to compliment the CNN advertisement, regardless of who wins next year’s presidential election, Uganda needs a smooth transition into multi-party politics.
Little will be gained from trumpeting the country’s natural assets to the world while encouraging political violence to run free like the wild horses of Wyoming. The bottom line is that with the meagre $1m advertisement on CNN, UTB has placed a down payment toward the radical makeover of Uganda.
To help the process along, the government needs to clean up the war in the north, repatriate IDP children and their parents back home, cut down crime and corruption, and ensure violence-free elections next year. Do that and watch the world join in the party and fun. Opiyo.oloya@sympatico.ca
Urbane Analysis: This development is nigh-on predictable in the wake of Yoweri Museveni's desperation - as portended by his decision five months ago to employ the Hill & Knowlton public relations firm. What angers us in the U.S. is that Museveni is spending our money, supplied by the U.S. Agency for International Development, to "fluff" his image - rather than help his people.
And that would be barely tolerable except that Museveni's cronies (and here and here and here) have made it practically impossible for private aid organizations to operate in Uganda - as corruption has escalated from shake-down through outright theft to worse. Containers brought into Uganda are outright pilfered of their contents by customs officials - unless the proper "fees" or "taxes" are paid in advance, in cash. The last time a container was met at Customs House in Kampala by an organization I support, its contents had been completely turned inside out - and almost half of it (including most anything that could be resold) was gone. In recent years we have experienced boxes emptied, and up to 20% pilferage of the books, clothing, school supplies and toys for orphans and poor school children throughout Uganda. But in 2005 the government of Uganda descended to new lows. We have heard similar reports from other NGOs, large and small, about their experience in Uganda. One large NGO reports to us that the only country worse is Robert Mugabe's regime in Zimbabwe. This problem is completely preventable, and happens at a time when only the Uganda Customs authorities and Maersk-Sealand shippers have had control over the container. It is notorious, open, in-your-face theft by the Museveni regime.
Personally, I want as many tourists to come to Uganda as possible, and the opposition should too. They will shine light on conditions there. They will speak out against the Museveni regime for ignoring the enormous human cost of poverty in Uganda. They will be outraged by what they encounter there.
The entertaining column from Ugandan celebrity Opiyo Oloya (and here and here) is instructive regarding how badly Ugandans (don't worry, plenty of Americans do too, as demonstrated here) misinterpret - and fail to comprehend - the nature of travel to their country by Mzungu - even from his vantage point in Canada he cannot see that the vast majority of "tourists" to Uganda (presently and for long into the future) will come there in conjunction with aid and missions work. The staggering poverty of Uganda will dictate the kind of visitor economy that country will experience - and that will not change in my lifetime. It is almost like some Ugandans are blind to the suffering around them. I do wish Oloya (and others) would get into those issues, and start a blog! There simply has to be an awakening to the task before Uganda.
Or look at it this way: even if the Lord's Resistance Army, the interest of Khartoum in keeping its southern border destabilized, as well as Tutsi rebels coming over the border from the Congo, and all of the violence of the north were to go away tomorrow - Uganda has years (if not decades) of long-delayed infrastructure development work to complete before human conditions improve to the point where the kind of tourism they anticipate might happen. And if they really want to compete for tourists with Kenya in this way, there will need to be several decades of stability in the national parks - and expansion of the no-hunting zones around those parks, in order for wildlife populations to reach a size before "the word will be out" about Uganda as a wildlife tourism destination.
But of course, even if all of that were to happen, things will not improve as long as the corrupt continue in power - because no amount of money thrown at Uganda can overcome the effects that corruption causes - both outward and psychological - to what Ugandans themselves feel they can accomplish.
All of us cannot "Make Poverty History"transparency, we make corruption history.
Urbane Update: This recent op/ed piece in the New Vision is particularly galling since it comes from a fellow Seattleite, who completely fails to comprehend that the entire national economy of Uganda is smaller (by half) than the neighborhood where she lives in the U.S.!
Uganda Must Market Itself to Woo Tourists
New Vision (Kampala)
by Karina Selyer
UGANDA is very fortunate because it has the resources to accommodate almost every type of tourist. However, although the possibilities of Uganda's tourist industry are promising, there are a few problems that must be overcome in order to make Uganda's tourist industry more efficient.
As a tourist in Uganda there are several issues that I have noticed obstructing Uganda's tourism potential. One of them is the lack of effective marketing overseas.
While discussing my summer plans to go to Uganda with my friends at the University of Washington, I was amazed at their lack of knowledge of where Uganda was and what Uganda had to offer. Not only did I have to explain where Uganda was in relation to Kenya, but I also had to explain that Uganda had world-class white water rafting, gorilla tracking, and nine national parks with a wide variety and abundant amount of wildlife to offer tourists.
I also found it very interesting that when you mention the words "African Safari," Kenya is the first if not only country to come to the minds of many.
Uganda must advertise overseas as well as within in the form of easily accessible information like television advertisements, internet, posters, and brochures.
Marketing the tourist attractions within can be as simple as putting up clearer signs in more places instead of right before the turnoff.
By branding Uganda to the rest of the world, it will become easier to attract and market not only to tourists but to other prospective investors as well. Consequently, a more efficient tourist industry would aid in strengthening and stabilising Uganda's economy.
I had the opportunity to tour part of Uganda with the chairman of Hotel and Catering Association of Uganda in collaboration with Strengthening the Competitiveness of Private Enterprise (SCOPE). The goal of the trip was to conduct interviews with managers of hotels around Uganda regarding the current state of their businesses and the changes that would make their businesses more successful and profitable.
An overwhelming number of the hotels mentioned that they would like to see a set of standards for the managers and the staff to follow.
The request for standardisation ranged from basic fire safety standards to coming up with standard hotel ratings.
Continuity within the tourist industry is important to its success because it builds legitimacy and leads to stronger competitiveness.
By establishing a set of standards, a hotel or lodging facility would also be able to market itself more effectively.
Another common complaint during the interviews was the lack of training for staff, especially with regards to customer service. Customer service is an important component in the tourist industry. An almost universal expectation of a tourist is to be treated politely and respectfully.
As a well-travelled person, I have slept in some cockroach-ridden hotels, had some serious food poisoning and experienced some very rude people, but I can honestly say I have never regretted the experiences I have had in the places I have visited and Uganda is no exception.
The writer is a student at the Univerity of Washington
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