Birds are increasingly
becoming the main creature flying Uganda's tourism industry high.
Conservationists and
tour operators who have monitored the sector for some time now say birders
spend more than gorilla tourists.
According to Achilles
Byaruhanga, executive director at Nature Uganda, on average a birdwatcher
spends not less than $4,000 (about Shs 10.3m at the current exchange rate) per
trip compared to other travellers whose spending stands at $1,500 (about Shs
3.8m).
Statistics by Nature
Uganda show that in 2008, less than 2,000 birders spent about $6m (about Shs
15.5bn), nearly twice the $3.3m (Shs 8.5bn) spent on gorilla tracking in Uganda
- with the average spending for a birder standing at $3,000 (Shs 7.7m) per trip
compared to other travellers at $700 per trip.
The explanation for this
high spending by birders is that whereas both gorillas and birds attract
high-end travellers, birders stay longer in the country. "The best birding
itinerary is not less than 14 days, yet a gorilla tourist spends at most three
days in the country," says Byaruhanga.
Of the three days, two
are spent on the road to or from Kampala and Bwindi Impenetrable Forest
national park (where gorilla tourism is currently done), a distance of about
460km from the capital Kampala. In fact some tourists prefer chartering a plane
from Entebbe to Bwindi to track the gorilla in a single day and catch the next
flight back to their country.
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