Assessing the composition and diversity of visitors who participate in beach tourism: a case study of Entebbe beaches

Abstract

The study assessed visitor composition and diversity of visitors participating in beach tourism. It was guided by objectives; to profile and document visitor composition and diversity at different beaches in Entebbe, to examine the implication of composition and diversity to beach tourism development and to establish challenges associated with visitor composition and diversity to beach tourism development. The study employed both questionnaires and interviews to collect data that was analyzed using SPSS software windows 16. The study revealed that most diversity and composition of travelers to Lido, Spenah and white sand beach were mainly Ugandans and a few foreign visitors. Visitor diversity include females, educated and married. In terms of composition and that were majorly in the youthful ages and that were engaged in different beach activities such as swimming, beach volley ball, and roasting and boozing. Visitor’s diversity and composition has appositive implication on the beach management with the choice of visitors activity being increased to accommodate various categories of visitors visiting the beaches. The visitor composition and diversity has created a change or shift in marketing strategy that has seen beach managers aiming at carrying outside advertisement to attract foreign travelers .staff management training has also been enhances to cater for the demands of the educated visitors and this has also seen a change in policy shift to priorities beach tourism development. Visitor composition and diversity is also associated with challenges such as insecurity, lack of beach standards, pollution and contamination, lack of modern and standard and infrastructure. It is from the above results that The study recommends that Marketing campaigns would increase on the number of foreign nonresident tourists, the government and private sector should invest in beach tourism infrastructure facilities especially accommodation and hotel industry in order to make tourists comfortable and that beach management to improvise enough security to the visitors, this will help give the visitors comfort and hence attract more visitors which will encourage more revenue and hence development.