As the world marks the World Tourism Week, the Cross Cultural Foundation of Uganda (CCFU) has appealed to government and all stakeholders to harness cultural tourism which is a growing and thriving bit of tourism world over.
The call was made by CCFU Heritage Trust Programme Manager, Simon Musasizi during a two days Exhibition for Cultural Enterprises organised at the National Theatre in Kampala.
Musasizi said that a lot of time, focus has been put on game drives and wildlife tourism but the country has a lot of other tourism bits which if harnessed, can increase on the country’s foreign earnings.
“As a country we have about 65 ethnic groups with different cultures, different dressing, different foods but we need to position ourselves so that we earn from culture tourism. We need to train our guides to be able to also package culture tourism as part of the experience that someone can do in our country,” Musasizi said.
Musasizi said that as an organisation, they have documented the country’s beautiful heritage in the different cities but a few guides have taken time to interest tourists in these heritage sites.
The CCFU boss noted that this will take a joint effort of all the different stakeholders adding that the organisation is currently building capacity of the different cultural groups to be able to produce quality products but also to be able to position themselves to earn from the tourism sector.
On the other had, Musasizi has revealed that the organisation is advocating for the integration of culture in climate change action.
“We have a network that we belong to that is called Climate Heritage Network. It’s a worldwide global network that brings together all stakeholders that are making efforts to make sure that culture is integrated in climate change. So we’ve been pushing for an inter-state cooperation which was formed last year,” Musasizi added.
On his part, the Executive Director of the Uganda National Cultural Centre (UNCC), Francis Peter Ojede highlighted government’s commitment to preserve and promote art, culture and heritage.
“Today, when you go to many of the villages, you don’t see a lot of these cultural aspects yet these define who we are. We need to preserve culture to be transferred to the future generations,” Ojede said.
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