Monarchies and the Development of Cultural Tourism a Case of Buganda Kingdom

Abstract

Today one of the fastest growing sectors is the tourism industry globally, a major portion of which is cultural tourism. Cultural tourism contributes between 32 and 37% of the revenue registered in the tourism industry worldwide (Melanie,2003). With growing democratic governments worldwide, monarchies are uniquely situated to cash in on the growth in cultural tourism as tourists seek traditional cultural experiences.

The study below uses the Buganda Monarchy as a case study to investigate the potential of improving cultural tourism on behalf of the Kingdom of Buganda. This study focuses on three objectives: (1) to explore the role the Buganda kingdom has contributed to the development of cultural heritage sites; (2) to examine how the kingdom has promoted cultural festivals; (3) and suggest the establishment of an appropriate management plan for the development of cultural heritage tourism sites within Buganda kingdom. A qualitative inquiry with an explanatory research method was employed to examine the role of monarchies in the development of cultural tourism in Uganda. Using a sample of 40 participants, the researcher gathered data through personal interviews, observation and documentary analysis.

The Buganda monarchy has positively contributed to the development of cultural tourism through the creation of the Ministry of Heritage, Royal Tombs and Tourism as well as passing of the conservation and maintenance policy. The above initiatives have led to the identification, gazetting and protection of historical and cultural-environmental sites. In addition, the kingdom provides both moral and financial support to the development of cultural tourism. For instance, in the 2015-2016 annual budget a total of 50, 240,000UGS was budgeted and 52,780,000UGS was spent. And Wamala and Kasubi’s renovation were commissioned. The kingdom has also embarked on a massive campaign to identify and renovate the gazetted and ungazetted cultural sites in the kingdom. Finally, it was also observed that there is a slow development of the cultural tourism industry within the realm. Cultural festivals in the Buganda kingdom have been promoted mainly through cultural exhibitions, performing art, clan institutions, ritual practices, craft-related businesses, health and environmental conservation campaigns, media advertisement, capacity building and directly extending financial support. Through the social survey, it was discovered that the kingdom lacks an appropriate strategy to manage the cultural heritage tourism sites within Buganda kingdom. However, the documentary analysis established an appropriate management plan for the development of cultural heritage tourism sites within Buganda kingdom, which is, the Community Cultural Tourism Development Approach (CCTDA), discussed in chapters four and five.

The study suggests that the kingdom’s administration should strongly engage professionals like environmentalists, tourism experts, historical and cultural scholars and other qualified personnel in analyzing and assessing any activity at the various sites to avoid endangering the historical, customs and cultural values of the sites under transformation. The county administration and private sector should partner with the sub counties and initiate the building of Traditional Arts and Enthnology Centers, based on sub counties’ merging model portrayed in the study to save the invaluable information on Buganda kingdom. The kingdom’s administrative organ should adopt the CCTDA, as a suitable method in developing the cultural tourism sector in the kingdom. To solve the problems of encroachment on sites, the kingdom’s administration should facilitate the mapping, surveying and fencing of the sites’ boundaries. It should also come up with a compensation scheme to recover all the cultural heritage sites’ land. Finally, the kingdom’s stakeholders should regularly fund and develop a system of capacity building to sustain and accelerate the cultural tourism activities.

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