Review the Development of Ecotourism in Central Forest Reserves – Uganda

Client: National Forest Authority (NFA)

Year: Jan 2019- Ongoing

Scope of Work:

The overall purpose of the consultancy is to guide NFA on how to develop and manage its existing and potential ecotourism sites as well as to promote ecotourism in Central Forest Reserves.

Description of Project:

• Summary overview of Uganda’s main nature-based tourism products, circuits and markets, and their future development and outlook.
• Guiding principles on how nature-based products can be developed and marketed.
• Identify and prioritize NFA’s most important existing and most promising potential tourism sites and products in relation to the market’s development and growth.
• Review relevant business/operating models in relation to different market segments for NFA’s tourism sites and their relative merits & drawbacks.
• Recommendations on how NFA should zone, target and structure its tourism offering for each site in relation to;
• Its relative potential and the quality/nature of the value offer e.g. for high-end, medium/budget and not least market.
• An appropriate business model/arrangement indicating possible revenue streams and the supporting revenue collection and monitoring arrangements.
• The necessary supporting infrastructure investment to be provided by NFA and/or licensees, cognizant that this will vary across sites.
• Recommendations on how the recurrent costs and maintenance of infrastructure provided by NFA are to be sustainably met.
• The necessary supporting investment for developing and enhancing resource values e.g. chimp tracking/habituation, trail development etc.
• A rapid assessment of the performance to date, and likely future performance of existing tourism lease-holders in relation to the overall potential of each site, recommendations on how existing tourism lease holders are to be best managed to improve concession development and performance and sustainably increase revenue generating.
• A risk assessment and sett out risk mitigation recommendations.
• An overall costed roadmap revised tourism strategy and work plan that sets out how NFA’s objectives for each of its priority tourism sites should be achieved, supported by site development plans and an overall work plan.