The Uganda Community Tourism Associations (UCOTA) has over the years realized that for the community associations to provide quality products (cultural activities, crafts, community tourism, guiding services, etc.) and remain sustainable, they need to have the necessary skills and expertise not only to produce the products and services but also have them at the right quality to interest tourists. Through a needs assessment, it was recognized that several deficiencies in the community capacities need to be addressed. A 5-module training curriculum was developed with the support of various partners and input from tour operators, UWA and selected tourists. The training is largely practical and includes participants undertaking a study visit to at least one similar community association successfully operating within Uganda. The practical aspects of the training provide the enterprise members opportunity to improve on their services and quality of products as they use their own enterprises as a case study. Through the training, assignments are given that help each community enterprise group participating in the training to develop a fully operational and business plan for implementation at the end of the training.
NB. Not all enterprises necessarily go through the 5 modules but rather customization of the modules is done to suit different enterprises.
The five modules are summarized below:
Although most enterprises trained, already have selected an enterprise to be undertaken, this module provides participants with an introduction of community-based tourism enterprise concept. This module is a one-day training. It allows each group to undertake an identification process for possible tourism products and the development of goals and key activities of the enterprise. This may require a complete change of enterprise to a more viable and sustainable one. The process which is carried out with as many members as possible also provides for the group members to select from among their members, individuals who will participate in the subsequent modules focusing on their role in the enterprise, availability and being trainable.
This module is a five-day training and builds on community tourism enterprises’ goals and activities in the concept developed in the first module at the same time considering conservation threats, needs of the surrounding communities and parks, and setting the strategies to address them sustainably. In the business planning training, identification of marketable products in regard to tourism potential, specifications of marketing, operations, competition, target markets, and tourism trends around the selected products were discussed.
This module normally runs for 5 days covering the essential operations for a community-based tourism enterprise. Issues discussed include business operations introduction, manager and staff job descriptions, hiring and firing, staff checklists, staff and vendor communications, property policies, staff code of conduct, basic customer service, reservation policies and procedures, client feedback, emergency policies, responsible tourism, and financial procedure
This module focuses on getting the participants to understand why interpretative guiding is done and why tourists take guided tours and participate in community activities. The training also enables participants to develop the enterprise product inventory and tour product guidelines. According to products on the ground, each group develops customized attraction/ product inventory and product delivery guidelines during the training workshop.
This module is intended to help participants appreciate how and what attracts the tourists to destinations, marketing channels, and tourist information presentation, market linkages, and identification of marketing channels a community can engage in and those to pursue through other stakeholders. Emphasis is made to the effect that marketing is an expensive venture which requires systematic collective contribute of resources and/or external assistance to leverage cost e.g. production of joint brochures, developing circuits and creating market linkages with tour operators and lodges is essential. This training also introduces the pearls of Uganda, UCOTA’s marketing program as an essential part of the five-module training and gives the trained enterprises and opportunity to join UCOTA for continued sustainable marketing of their tourism products.
At the end of the 5-module training community enterprises and the trained members are recognized\ awarded certificates and reminded role to finalise and put to use their enterprise business and operation plans. This is effectively done with the assistance of the UCOTA staff to the enterprises through monitoring and close follow-ups.
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