The Contribution of Ssese Islands to Marine Tourism Development in Kalangala
Abstract
ABSTRACT
This study was carried out in Ssese islands, Kalangala district. It aimed at assessing the contribution of Ssese islands to marine tourism development in Kalangala.
The objectives included assessing the physical attributes of marine tourism in Kalangala, assessing what the district officials of Kalangala were doing to promote marine tourism and challenges.
A cross section survey design was used to collect data. The Respondents were purposively and simple randomly selected and they included tourists (30), local community (50) and tour operators (15), which totaled to 95 respondents.
In order to collect data, questionnaires were used; data was thereafter analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively. The study finding revealed that the physical attributes in Ssese islands include Lake Victoria, birds, animals, fish species, tropical forests and site viewing of Speke and grants cave among others.
The district is doing research on marine tourism potentials in Ssese islands, implementing tourism laws and regulations on operators of water vessels, publicizing the destinations in Ssese among others, however they are going through challenges such major accidents (drowning in the lakes), disunity of tour operators (making it difficult to market the island),seasonal arrival of tourists, poor conditions of boats, limited transportation means and limited network.
It is therefore recommended that there are measures to overcome the above problem, such as; improvement of the transport means (increase in ferries and have different schedules for the ferries to operate, develop more infrastructure such as better and safer roads through the forests, due to the difficult of walking through the forests, train guides to learn different other international languages and improve on security on the island.