Opportunities for nature-based tourism on the shores of Lake Victoria : A case study of Entebbe Municipality
Abstract
Understanding the opportunities for Nature-Based Tourism on the Shores of Lake Victoria is critical for Tourism in Entebbe Municipality and Uganda as a whole. The study assessed the different nature-based tourism attractions around the shores of Lake Victoria, opportunities for further development of nature-based tourism on the shores of Lake Victoria and the challenges associated with nature-based tourism on the shores of Lake Victoria around Entebbe Municipality.
A participatory approach was employed in the study of the opportunities for nature-based tourism to ensure reliability of resultant information and data was collected from 60 persons using the questionnaire method. The study found that 65.8% of the respondents spent their leisure time at the beaches, 31.6% go to UWEC, 15.8% go to the botanical gardens, 13.2% go to night clubs, 10.5% go to hotels and landing sites, 7.9% go to church, the malls and Kampala, 5.3% go to the Golf Club and football pitch and only 2.6% go to Entebbe town. This meant that Entebbe is naturally gifted with various tourist attractions and therefore fit for leisure and adventure.
Majority, 91.1% of the respondents who strongly agreed that they had gained benefits from the leisure facilities in Entebbe, and only 8.9% had not much benefited as to their responses. This means that there is room for development of these nature-based places since the community people using them are highly positive with them. The study further asserted that the respondents showed that however much these nature-based facilities in Entebbe are good, they tend to breed about some negativities to the society.
The study recommends that the future studies need to address the above limitations in order to obtain more convincing results. More specifically, special attention should be given to obtaining a bigger sample, research should also find out the modern ways of preserving the nature- based sites in Entebbe and how to use, manage and promote them effectively and that continuation of the subject matter of this research could be based on a different case study in order to gain a richer and bigger picture of the study topic