If you start writing a blog and people actually read it, it feels pretty good! I've not exactly picked uncontroversial subjects and have friends with strong opinions and substantial experience to back them up. So this blogging malarkey is proving positive!
One of the most interesting insights has come from a friend who's leading the debate on the construction of the new dam. His argument is hinged on the role of adventure tourism providing a unique hat trick of tourism opportunities in a relatively small country. No other country in the region can provide wildlife safaris, Gorillas and adventure to the extent that Uganda can and certainly not squeezed into such a small space. Giving Uganda a unique selling point which can be developed to provide even more revenue than is currently being generated. But some of his financial arguments seemed slightly self serving to me, so I set out to see if I could find statistical evidence to support or refute them.
As pointed out by the Government owned New Vision paper. the Ugandan Investment Authority state that tourism in Uganda brought in between $197m and $444m in 2004/5 which is substantially more or possibly double the income due to coffee exports ($145m) and could be equal to all agricultural exports ($452m) for the same year (Table 4). Furthermore, 70% of hotels in Uganda are owned by the domestic private sector (Table 1). In the interests of presenting an unbiased picture, UIA also state that 560,000 people rely on tourism as opposed to 3,000,000 on coffee production. The number of households reliant on coffee farming has dropped from 650,000 to 500,000 between 1999 and 2005 whereas the number of households reliant on tourism has nearly double in the same time.
The UIA points out that, other than visiting friends or relatives, tourism is one of the main reasons for visiting Uganda. If this is then compared against the average daily spend of a tourist at around $120 as opposed to $68 for a business traveller and virtually nothing for somebody visiting friends of family (Table 12); protecting the industry seems ever more logical. They even point out the main reason for tourism is "national parks, white water rafting, fishing and travel around the country". Furthermore, the tourist arrivals in four years from 2002 to 2006 have doubled and the approved investment from 2009 to 2010 have has gone from 2 million to 85 million dollars; ownership of investment being split 61% local, 4% joint venture and 35% foreign investment (Table 11).
Not only is tourism a rapidly growing sector within Uganda it's also a blatantly longer term revenue stream than extractive industries. If managed properly, the wildlife and rivers can attract tourists from all over the world forever. As can be seen from the lessons learnt in Dubai oil and minerals are finite resources. This isn't to say that industrial development shouldn't be promoted, just that it should be done so with appropriate environmental impact and social performance management.
The fact is that you can travel from Eastern Uganda to Western Uganda in a day if you push it or in a few if you stop of on the way at Lake Mburo or Queen Elizabeth National Park. So within a few weeks a tourist could go rafting, go on multiple safaris and see gorillas. But if you removed the rafting by building a dam a tourist could go on larger safaris in Kenya or Tanzania and have a shorter journey if they saw gorillas in Rwanda.
The rafting and kayaking community in Jinja are making the point that you can have the best of all worlds. There are three options:
Looking at the UIA website they, worryingly, seem to completely miss the thousands of tourists paying top dollar for a day of rafting. But have this to say about it:
"13.2 Water Sports and other related Activities
Uganda has a lot of potential to attract tourists to undertake water sports on Lake Victoria and other water bodies, which as underutilized. The investment opportunities include luxury boat cruises, boating services on the popular lakes and rivers (the Nile) create a unique tourist experience and water sports such as white water rafting, skiing, boat racing."
As a kayaker this statement seems odd to me. Though if you consider that almost all of the tourists that go rafting or kayaking are foreigners it then comes as less of a surprise that the industry is undervalued by the average Ugandan. Especially when you factor in that many people here do not learn to swim at an early age so are unlikely to go rafting or see its value. But it seems strange that the UIA don't include 'Adventure Tourism' as one of their 'Key Private Sector Players'.
It seems to me that the estimated annual value of Jinja's tourism industry needs to be better publicised and it's multiplier effect on the rest of Uganda's tourism better understood as this is obviously a substantial part of the Ugandan economy. The UIA stats are a bit out of date s if more recent ones could be found to demonstrate continued growth and compare them to revenue from energy production or extractive industries that would strengthen the argument further. In my mind the best example would be if the tourism incomes pre and post Bujagali dam showed a dip or drop in growth for the entire Ugandan tourism sector this would show that rafting has a substantial impact on Ugandan tourism at large.
I know my friend in Jinja and reckon that if there's somebody to do this he will. If you're the sort of person that can create a profitable business on the back of (basically) safely throwing tourists down big white water and developing highly skilled local guides; I doubt you're the sort to go down without a fight.
Obviously I have a vested interest in wanting the white water to remain because I enjoy paddling it but so do the hundreds of thousands of households (which is growing every year) that directly rely on Ugandan tourism for their income and the markets that surround them. I'm not one to jump on a bandwagon without doing my research and as an engineer I believe in cold hard numbers if they reinforce themselves when applied in a different manner. It seems obvious now that a badly implemented dam could have a severely negative impact on Ugandan tourism and therefore economic growth; so I'll keep writing about what I'm learning as this develops. Hopefully people will keep reading and discussing it!
If you'd like to show your support for Ugandan Adventure Tourism as it's evidently important to Ugandan economic growth like this Facebook page, it's only a little thing but it's a start.
One of the most interesting insights has come from a friend who's leading the debate on the construction of the new dam. His argument is hinged on the role of adventure tourism providing a unique hat trick of tourism opportunities in a relatively small country. No other country in the region can provide wildlife safaris, Gorillas and adventure to the extent that Uganda can and certainly not squeezed into such a small space. Giving Uganda a unique selling point which can be developed to provide even more revenue than is currently being generated. But some of his financial arguments seemed slightly self serving to me, so I set out to see if I could find statistical evidence to support or refute them.
As pointed out by the Government owned New Vision paper. the Ugandan Investment Authority state that tourism in Uganda brought in between $197m and $444m in 2004/5 which is substantially more or possibly double the income due to coffee exports ($145m) and could be equal to all agricultural exports ($452m) for the same year (Table 4). Furthermore, 70% of hotels in Uganda are owned by the domestic private sector (Table 1). In the interests of presenting an unbiased picture, UIA also state that 560,000 people rely on tourism as opposed to 3,000,000 on coffee production. The number of households reliant on coffee farming has dropped from 650,000 to 500,000 between 1999 and 2005 whereas the number of households reliant on tourism has nearly double in the same time.
The UIA points out that, other than visiting friends or relatives, tourism is one of the main reasons for visiting Uganda. If this is then compared against the average daily spend of a tourist at around $120 as opposed to $68 for a business traveller and virtually nothing for somebody visiting friends of family (Table 12); protecting the industry seems ever more logical. They even point out the main reason for tourism is "national parks, white water rafting, fishing and travel around the country". Furthermore, the tourist arrivals in four years from 2002 to 2006 have doubled and the approved investment from 2009 to 2010 have has gone from 2 million to 85 million dollars; ownership of investment being split 61% local, 4% joint venture and 35% foreign investment (Table 11).
Not only is tourism a rapidly growing sector within Uganda it's also a blatantly longer term revenue stream than extractive industries. If managed properly, the wildlife and rivers can attract tourists from all over the world forever. As can be seen from the lessons learnt in Dubai oil and minerals are finite resources. This isn't to say that industrial development shouldn't be promoted, just that it should be done so with appropriate environmental impact and social performance management.
The fact is that you can travel from Eastern Uganda to Western Uganda in a day if you push it or in a few if you stop of on the way at Lake Mburo or Queen Elizabeth National Park. So within a few weeks a tourist could go rafting, go on multiple safaris and see gorillas. But if you removed the rafting by building a dam a tourist could go on larger safaris in Kenya or Tanzania and have a shorter journey if they saw gorillas in Rwanda.
The rafting and kayaking community in Jinja are making the point that you can have the best of all worlds. There are three options:
- Build the biggest dam possible and flood the river right back to the middle of the commercially run section and create flood plains across much of the farmland directly upstream of the dam;
- Build a smaller dam (5m lower I think) and flood less of the section; or
- Build the smallest suggested dam (12m lower I believe) and flood none of the rafting section.
Looking at the UIA website they, worryingly, seem to completely miss the thousands of tourists paying top dollar for a day of rafting. But have this to say about it:
"13.2 Water Sports and other related Activities
Uganda has a lot of potential to attract tourists to undertake water sports on Lake Victoria and other water bodies, which as underutilized. The investment opportunities include luxury boat cruises, boating services on the popular lakes and rivers (the Nile) create a unique tourist experience and water sports such as white water rafting, skiing, boat racing."
As a kayaker this statement seems odd to me. Though if you consider that almost all of the tourists that go rafting or kayaking are foreigners it then comes as less of a surprise that the industry is undervalued by the average Ugandan. Especially when you factor in that many people here do not learn to swim at an early age so are unlikely to go rafting or see its value. But it seems strange that the UIA don't include 'Adventure Tourism' as one of their 'Key Private Sector Players'.
It seems to me that the estimated annual value of Jinja's tourism industry needs to be better publicised and it's multiplier effect on the rest of Uganda's tourism better understood as this is obviously a substantial part of the Ugandan economy. The UIA stats are a bit out of date s if more recent ones could be found to demonstrate continued growth and compare them to revenue from energy production or extractive industries that would strengthen the argument further. In my mind the best example would be if the tourism incomes pre and post Bujagali dam showed a dip or drop in growth for the entire Ugandan tourism sector this would show that rafting has a substantial impact on Ugandan tourism at large.
I know my friend in Jinja and reckon that if there's somebody to do this he will. If you're the sort of person that can create a profitable business on the back of (basically) safely throwing tourists down big white water and developing highly skilled local guides; I doubt you're the sort to go down without a fight.
Obviously I have a vested interest in wanting the white water to remain because I enjoy paddling it but so do the hundreds of thousands of households (which is growing every year) that directly rely on Ugandan tourism for their income and the markets that surround them. I'm not one to jump on a bandwagon without doing my research and as an engineer I believe in cold hard numbers if they reinforce themselves when applied in a different manner. It seems obvious now that a badly implemented dam could have a severely negative impact on Ugandan tourism and therefore economic growth; so I'll keep writing about what I'm learning as this develops. Hopefully people will keep reading and discussing it!
If you'd like to show your support for Ugandan Adventure Tourism as it's evidently important to Ugandan economic growth like this Facebook page, it's only a little thing but it's a start.
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