How the anti-gay bill affected Uganda’s tourism – Uganda Travel News

What started as a small issue in the country brought up one Member of Parliament turned into a setback for the country’s main business. Early this year, the ant-gay law was passed under criticism from many stakeholders .However, it was later challenged in the courts of law and it was canceled till further notice and more investigations. It is this reason that Uganda for the last year was in the lime light as being criticized by many human rights activists.

But one evil side of the challenged law is that it affected almost all the international business of the country. One of the greatly affected sectors is the tourism industry because it solely depends on visitors from different countries in the world. When the human rights activists spread the gospel that Uganda has no room for homosexuals, many tourists got scared thinking that the country does not respect the rights of all people. This negatively affected the country’s image and in the long run, fewer safaris were registered compared to previous year .According to the Minister of Tourism, Maria Mutagamba, she came out and assured tourists that the country is more peaceful than ever and everyone can visit it at any time of the year. However, little signs of improvement have been evidenced as the sector has scrambled a bit. Many tour operators have come out and cried to the government to do something because they don’t want the same thing to happen next year. They pointed out that this year there was no business because of the law and this has not only denied them income but also the government has lost huge sums of revenues.

Actually, the number of guests in the different national parks has reduced by 30% a thing that has worried the concerned authorities who fear that is unsolved; the country is on a verge of losing huge revenues.

Uganda is one of the leading travel destinations in Africa and it receives visitors from different countries with different cultures. It is this reason that the country has to make sure that it finds better ways balancing the cultures if it’s to continue earning revenue from tourists. This should b done comprehensively and it should accommodate for the local cultures too of the local people.