The out break of the novel virus in Uganda, the early months of the year led to total shutdown of so many businesses but mostly leading to temporally closure of airports and hence no travels. Most countries declared lock down as one way of cubing down the spread of the various. In countries like Uganda, tourism was put on hold including all other stake holders like hotels and lodges.
However, the good news is that after a temporally closure of 3 months, savannah parks have re-opened to receive tourists with in the country following the preventive measures to spread the virus. The decision to open the parks was after numerous discussion on how to revive the tourism industry with different stake holders as well on how to protect the wild animals form the virus, it was concluded to open Savannah parks with less interaction with humans and hold on to primate parks like Bwindi forest national park famous for gorilla trekking activities, Kibale forest National park for chimpanzee tracking.
Re-opened savannah parks for tourism are Queen Elizabeth National park, Lake Mburo National park, Murchison Falls, Kidepo Valley and Semiliki national park. These opened parks are a top game for game drives and viewing accompanied by other activities like birding, boat and launch cruise, hiking among others. In preparation to open the savannah parks, Uganda wild Life authority trained all the staff on how to manage the spread of the virus through training them on how to check temperature and other standard operative procedures to ensure the safety of everyone.
More so, in a statement issued by Uganda wild life authority which governs all the protected parks in Uganda, all visitors, and staff will follow recommendation and guidelines from the Ministry of Health as directives from the president of Uganda. Some of these guidelines are;
- Mandatory Temperature screening using non-contact infrared thermometers at the key tourism gates of the different protected areas.
- Mandatory hand washing/sanitizing at all entrances of all UWA premises and protected areas
- Government guidelines of carrying half capacity in order to observe social distance shall apply to the use of vehicles and boats in parks like Queen Elizabeth, Murchison and Lake Mburo for boat cruise.
- Saloon cars will not be allowed to do game drives in protected parks
- Large group of people exceeding 25 people will not be allowed in the park at the same time
- Events such as weddings shall not be allowed.
- Mandatory wearing of a face masking while in the park in encouraged as well visitors are reminded to carry personal sanitize-rs and make use of them at all times.
In conclusion, opening of the savannah parks brings much light and hope for the tourism industry despite the pandemic virus, therefore tourists all over the world are called upon to reschedule their trips to sustain tourism growth in Uganda.
