Uganda Tourism Board (UTB) Gets New Home
The Uganda Tourism Board (UTB), the Tourism promotion arm of the country, has got a new home.
Formerly located in the basement of Impala House on Kimathi Avenue, UTB has moved to its new offices located at Windsor Crescent, in Kampala's posh Kololo suburb.
Located in about an acre of land, the plush spacious office is being seen as a step ahead by UTB to take the staggering but potential sector that has kept lagging behind her East African Counterparts.
The Uganda Tourism Board's Executive Director, Mr Cuthbert Baguma, told East African Business Week last week that the spacious offices are ideal and convenient for Tourism.
Baguma, who is only just four months in office, said the former office at Kimathi Avenue was inadequate for marketing.
“Fundamentally, you can't talk about marketing and promotion without image, and one of the key ingredients of image is location in terms of accessibility, proximity and convenience,” Baguma said.
"The previous office space we were occupying at Impala was grossly inadequate for the creation of a prime marketing agency like UTB as the tourism marketing arm of Uganda."
Apart from its offices at Garden City, Baguma said UTB plans to open another office in a prime location in the central business district to ease accessibility and convenience for improved customer care and service delivery.
In 1907 Uganda was visited by Winston Churchill. His discriminating and perceptive analysis of what Uganda has to offer was recorded in "My African Journey", where he wrote "Uganda is truly the pearl of Africa".
Blessed with unique attractions, beauty, its well-earned reputation for hospitality, modesty and friendliness, Uganda seems to be slowly losing its tourism grounds. With the trials of independence and civil war now long past, Uganda has once again opened its doors to tourists.
Over the past three years, Uganda's Ministry of Tourism, through its associated agencies the Uganda Tourism Board and the Uganda Wildlife Authority are sowing the seeds of a brand new conservation-based form of sustainable tourism.
Compiled by
Jackie
Black back attack kills an Infant
The absentee of the dominant silverback Isabukuru in a gorilla group, gave a chance to black back Kubaha to attack the group members in which a seven-month-old infant Agatako was killed, while his mother Bukima, who was carrying him. Kubaha was aggressive all morning towards all the females in his group.
“Most of the time, Kubaha displayed with chest beats and plant smashing and was tight-lipped and strut-standing towards group members. He was obviously nervous and uptight,” said Joel Glick, the Karisoke Research Center’s interim Gorilla Program coordinator, who was collecting data in Isabukuru’s group at the time.
It is unclear whether Kubaha, who is 11 years old and has not yet reached sexual maturity, was nervous about having to lead the females, or whether he was trying to attract their attention by showing off his strength, or both.
With tension mounting and females occasionally responding to his aggressions with gestures of appeasement or aggression, Kubaha launched a fierce attack against Bukima, who was behind a thick bush on the edge of the mountain. Her loud screams alerted the other females, who ran towards Kubaha. It was then, at noon, that Agatako, who was clinging to his mother, lost his life. However, the view was obscured for observers, so they could not establish beyond any doubt whether Kubaha directly targeted him, or whether he died in the interaction between the aggressor and his mother. Neither Bukima nor the other females sustained any injuries.
By the time Glick reached the group at the bottom of the mountain, just four minutes after Kubaha’s attack, Bukima was carrying her dead infant away from the other gorillas. His tiny body was covered in blood. When she finally laid him on the ground, every individual in the group approached him with curiosity. Bukima paced nervously, as though trying to decide whether to look for Isabukuru’s trail or watch over her dead infant.
This would not, however, be the end of the drama for the day. Kubaha next approached the dead body and started to display with it, as some of the females screamed.
“It was absolutely horrible,” said Glick, visibly shaken. “Kubaha flung the body in the air several times, let it drop to the ground, and then dragged it all over the place. He even chest-beat while holding the body in one hand. There was blood everywhere.”
This lasted for 15 minutes, after which Kubaha finally set down Agatako’s body. It was later recovered by the veterinarians, whose preliminary report indicated “deep puncture wounds,” most likely from canine teeth. This would indicate that Kubaha indeed bit Agatako.
A short while afterward, silverback Isabukuru returned to the gorilla group, unaware of what had happened in his absence. He had spent the morning some 600 meters away, trailing another gorilla group in the vicinity, according to the trackers who followed him. He stared in the direction he had come from and displayed three times, and then all was quiet, with no further aggressions.
Isabukuru himself was responsible for the only other case of presumed intra-group infanticide ever recorded when he was still a black back in Pablo’s group, in December 2006. Soon after he killed one Infant there, he left together with a few females and started the new group that is named after him.
Agatako was born on January 26. He was healthy, and Bukima was taking good care of him. He received his name - which means “ornament” in the local Kinyarwandan language - during the Kwita Izina ceremony last month. He was Bukima’s third offspring. Her previous infants all died as well.
Compiled by
Jackie