Assignment No.

2
On
Rural areas

Submitted To: Submitted By:-

Mr. Pankaj Sir Arun Pathania
Roll No.-RV8901AO4
Reg.no.- 10902309
MBA(TOURISM & Hospitality)
Introduction

As many as 75 per cent of the world’s poor live in rural areas. Top tourism destinations,
particularly in developing countries, include national parks, wilderness areas, mountains, lakes,
and cultural sites, most of which are generally rural. Thus tourism is already an important feature
of the rural economy in these specific sites. It is self-evident that tourism will never come to
dominate all rural areas, particularly in the developing world – there are vast swathes of rural
areas for which tourism is not relevant for the foreseeable future. Between these two extremes
are poor rural areas with some tourism potential, and an urgent need to develop whatever
economic potential they have.

Thus, an important question is whether more can be done to develop tourism within such rural
areas, as a way of dispersing the benefits of tourism and increasing its poverty impact.The aim of
Pro-Poor Tourism (PPT) is to increase the net benefits to poor people from tourism, and increase
their participation in managing the tourism product. If more tourism can be developed in rural
areas, particularly in ways that involve high local participation in decisions and enterprises, then
poverty impacts are likely to be enhanced. The nature of rural tourism products, often involving
small-scale operations and culturally-based or farm-based products, can be conducive to wide
participation. Tourism can also bring a range of other benefits to rural areas, such as
infrastructural development and spin-off enterprise opportunities. This paper thus assumes that
strategies to further develop rural tourism can be one part of a pro-poor tourism agenda.
However, developing rural tourism has its challenges. Any successful tourism development,
Whether pro-poor or not, depends on commercial, economic, and logistical issues, such as the
Quality of the product, accessibility and infrastructure of the destination, availability of skills,
and Interest of investors. In most of these aspects, rural areas may well be at a disadvantage
compared tour banished and more developed areas. These challenges may be compounded by
political and institutional obstacles, particularly in developing countries, i.e. the administrative
complexity of dealing with low-populated areas, the lack of policy co-ordination between rural
development and tourism development, and low priority provided to rural areas by central
governments. Thus, ways to deal with these challenges is needed.

Rural tourism takes many different forms and is pursued for different reasons. There are
Developmental reasons to promote tourism as a growth pole such as for regeneration following
Agro-industrial collapse, or diversification of a remote marginal agricultural area into adventure
tourism or cultural tourism. Other reasons relate more to development of the tourism product
such as diversifying a country’s image, or alleviating bottlenecks in popular sites. There are big
differences in approach between Eastern Europe and Africa (the two areas of focus in this paper)
due to their economic legacy and context. But in both, rural tourism is seen as one means to
assist rural economies with the transitions they are facing in order to thrive in a more liberalized
economy.

The purpose of this paper is to explore strategies for expanding tourism in poor rural areas. It
draw son an overview of the likely challenges and motivations involved in promoting rural
tourism, and on two new case studies from the Czech Republic and Uganda, complemented by
insights from other rural tourism initiatives elsewhere. It does not focus on rural tourism at well-
established orhigh-value sites (such as gorilla habitat, famous mountains or reserves), but on
bringing tourism into wider rural areas. Estimates that 75% of the 1.2 billion people living on
less than one dollar a day live and work in rural areas.
Outlines the importance and likely obstacles of rural tourism, thus sets out the key Challenges on
which practical lessons are needed. The paper does not seek to provide a Comprehensive review
of international experience of rural tourism approaches, but Section 3 briefly provides some key
background on different types of approaches, thus providing distinctions and definitions for the
discussion. In particular, it outlines the differing context for rural tourism strategies in Eastern
Europe and sub-Saharan Africa.

In Ugandan villages in the traditional kingdom of Buganda. The motivations, institutional

Processes, practical steps, progress and obstacles are identified. The final section returns to the
Themes of challenges and strategies in order to identify useful lessons for pro-poor tourism
Strategies more generally. This paper does not provide an economic and social impact
assessment of the development of rural areas into a tourism destination. While such an
assessment is urgently needed, considerable new research is required to inform it.

This is an important gap in our knowledge of rural tourism and pro-poor tourism. Most
assessments of the impact of tourism in the development literature focus either on the macro
level (for example at national level on contribution to foreign exchange or total employment), or
on the micro level (for example, impacts of one lodge or one enterprise). Given that the
‘destination’ is the key level at which development takes place and impacts are maximized in
tourism, destination level assessment is needed to understand poverty impacts.

Importance and Challenges of Tourism in Rural Areas

Rural areas are heterogeneous. The definition of a rural area is problematic in the literature –
most people know a rural area when they see one, but few agree on a definition in a few
sentences. Debates aside, common features of rural space are (Ashley and Maxwell 2001):-

• Spaces where human settlement and infrastructure occupy only small patches of the landscape,
Most of which is dominated by fields and pastures, woods and forest, water, mountain and
Desert.
• Places where most people spend most of their working time on farms
• abundance and relative cheapness of land
• high transaction costs, associated with long distance and poor infrastructure
• geographical conditions that increase political transaction costs and magnify the possibility of
Elite capture or urban bias.

For the purposes of this paper, key features that make rural areas relevant to pro-poor tourism
Developments are their poverty and lack of economic opportunity, combined with the
agricultural and/or scenic and/or cultural nature of the area, which provides a tourism asset.
The aim of ‘pro-poor tourism’ is to increase the net benefits to poor people from tourism, and
Increase their participation in the development of the tourism product. From this perspective,
there’re three main reasons why it is important to develop tourism in rural areas:-

Increase participation of the poor in the development of tourism

While the percentage of poor people in urban areas is increasing, there are still more in rural
Areas, both in total numbers as well as a proportion of the population. One key opportunity of
Involving more of the poor in tourism is to develop tourism enterprises where they live. This is
not to say that the poor will necessarily own an enterprise, or even provide the labor, just
Because it is located in a rural area, but location is a first step. Furthermore, two strengths of
tourism for increasing participation are that a) because the customer comes to the product (not
there are more opportunities for expanding the range of transactions. Tourism usually involves a
wide range of enterprises, i.e. the small and informal as well as the well-established or multi-
national (Ashley, Goodwin and Roe 2001). One advantage specific to rural tourism is that the
nature of the product often involves enterprises that feature local ownership such as bed and
breakfasts (B&Bs), home visits and farm stays.

Bring wider benefits to rural areas

Rural areas generally suffer high levels of poverty, and are also characterized by lower levels
of non-farm economic activity, infrastructural development, and access to essential services.
They may also suffer from depopulation of the able-bodied4, and lack of political clout.
According to Gannon (1994) and Kieselbach and Long (1990) the development of tourism can
help address several of these problems through, Although poverty is becoming urbanized, it is
estimated that the majority of the poor of developing countries will be in rural areas Until at least
2020. IFAD projects that over 60% of the poor will be rural even in 2025

Depopulation refers to young, skilled workers moving out, to leave a largely unskilled, elderly
population in the rural area. It is a Critical issue in much of Eastern Europe, and in many sub-
Saharan African countries.

• Economic growth, economic diversification and stabilization;

• Employment creation, as primary source of income but most importantly secondary source
of income;
• reduced out-migration and possibly re-population;
• Maintenance and improvement of public services;
• Infrastructural improvements;
• revitalizing crafts, customs and cultural identities;
• increasing opportunities for social contact and exchange;
• Protection and improvement of both the natural and built environment;
• increasing recognition of rural priorities and potential by policy-makers and economic
planners5.

One option among few

Manufacturing industry gravitates to areas with good transport links, infrastructure, and
Commercial skills. Rural areas usually have few sources of comparative advantage for
Attracting economic activity other than agriculture or industries based on harvesting natural
Resources (mining, forestry) (Wiggins et al. 2001). Tourism is one of the few sectors that can
be suitable to remote or non-urban areas, provided that there is sufficient access for tourists.
Because there are few other options, its value to the poor can be particularly high6.
As outlined in the next section, the combination and form of these different benefits varies
Enormously between places. However these and other reasons mean that expanding tourism into
new rural areas can make policy sense. There are also practical reasons why doing so may appear
tope a relatively ‘easy’ option. The nature of rural tourism products and clientele may mean that
Relatively basic facilities suffice, which are easier to develop than high quality resorts. There
may well be assets in rural areas (man-made structures, culture, nature) that can be readily
adapted for Tourism development.

Tourism development can also have negative impacts on residents. In rural areas, displacement
of people from their land and competition for other natural resources such as water, forest, and
wildlife are likely to be the key trade-offs. Pro-poor strategies should therefore focus on
minimizing negative impacts as well as exploiting potential benefits.

However, any assessment of the key features of successful tourism development, and the key
Characteristics of rural areas lead to the hypothesis that developing tourism in rural areas faces
major obstacles. Table 1 lists some of the requirements of tourism, and shows how rural areas
maybe less likely than urban areas to be able to meet most of them.
5 Nicanor (2001), reviewing community-based tourism in Namibia identifies that community
based organizations play a vital role in lobbying and advocacy, thus providing a voice for
marginalized groups. The low political priority afforded to rural areas may bemore of a problem
in developing countries, where farming has traditionally been taxed to support the urban classes
and modern sectors, than in Europe, including Eastern Europe, where rural and agricultural
issues often gain considerable political support.

The gap between requirements of tourism and characteristics of rural areas

Common requirements for tourism development, Common characteristics of rural
areas : -

• A product, or potential product

• Variable. May have a high-value unique selling
point, may be an attractive desired location for travelers from cities, may have little to offer.
• Access – transport infrastructure, limited distance, limited discomfort
• Distant from cities, poor roads, few trains/buses/planes
• Investment in facilities • Limited access to financial capital, affordable credit and private
investment.
• Skills in service, hospitality • Low skills (skills migrate)
• Regular and quality inputs, e.g. of food and other supplies
• Undeveloped commercial production, distant from markets
• Marketing skills • Distant from marketing networks
• Clustering of tourism products to create a ‘package’ holiday
• Lower concentration of tourism products in one place
• Government investment • Low priority for governments, particularly tourism/trade ministries,
particularly in sub-Saharan Africa While it is possible to highlight a number of obstacles that are
common to rural areas, this is not the case when considering the tourism attraction itself. Some
rural areas have such strong products, such as mountain gorillas, well-endowed wildlife areas,
stunning wilderness that the quality of the product can compensate for other problems, and act as
an incentive for the industry and tourists to overcome them. Others areas, however, may be
characterized by vast expanses of agricultural land (perhaps marshy or highly arid), be
topographically featureless, and lacking distinctive cultural and/or historical features. These
areas are unlikely to develop a successful product even if the other obstacles are addressed,
unless a well-resourced private or public investor spots an opportunity.

But for many rural areas, developing rural tourism will require a combination of developing an
attractive product, and overcoming the other challenges, such as accessibility and availability of
skills. Good marketing and fast transport links can turn a pleasant area into a popular short-break
or excursion destination. Most of the obstacles listed above are commercial, economic and
logistical. They can be addressed through investment of time and resources, although it cannot be
done everywhere. However the institutional and political problems are important to note, as they
can assume great importance in rural areas. Although tourism today is generally a private-sector
industry, a degree of government support, in terms of investment, appropriate regulation and
marketing, can be key. In some countries rural tourism is already well recognized by policy
makers as an important economic strategy. In others, particularly in Africa, support for tourism
in rural areas may be limited because:-

• Where tourism is planned within a tourism ministry, or a tourism and wildlife ministry, the
institutional mandate is likely to be in expanding the national tourism product, rather than the
growth potential of poor areas. Thus the focus is more likely to be on attracting investment,
developing the main destinations, marketing them, and often also on data gathering. If the policy
objective is expansion of tourism investment and arrivals, particularly of international tourism,
the fastest returns may come from a focus on existing resorts and urban areas, where tourists,
assets and skills are concentrated. That said, there It is not impossible to develop a standard area,
or even an unattractive one, into a product with sufficient investment. Sun City, the most popular
resort in South Africa, is a ‘creation’. Cancun was built in a mosquito–infested swamp. While
these attractions receive large amounts of visitors, i.e. 40% of international arrivals to Mexico
visit Cancun, they are exceptional and highly geographically concentrated developments.

May be commercial reasons to invest in rural products, such as product diversification, or

Political pressure to expand economic impacts to poor areas.

• Rural development planners and extension workers are unlikely to focus on tourism, which
is entirely alien to their agriculturally-focused professional training.
• Lack of communication between government departments, or inconsistencies between Policies,
that occur in the capital city can be greatly magnified in rural areas. Administrative Boundaries,
reporting structures and mandates can impede collaboration.
• Rural areas may have little political priority across government offices, not just in the tourism
ministry. Given the added costs of investment in rural areas, and the lower per person returns
given lower population density, a policy to redistribute resources to rural areas is likely to require
a strategic political choice (Start 2001).
• Even if political will is sufficient, there are administrative challenges to making things
happen in rural areas given lower population densities, poorer infrastructure, more junior
government staff, lower levels of skills and commercial activity.

The situation may be quite different in some countries, particularly in Europe, where tourism is
more often under the Ministry for Economic Affairs, and where the main mandate is 'growth' in
Addition to the other cornerstones of economic development. At the same time tourism planning
and development in rural areas often falls within the Ministry for Rural Affairs, or under
decentralized government bodies (Federal States, Counties) which combine rural planning and
tourism planning. Thus while the National Tourism Boards have a marketing mandate, planning
happens elsewhere with a clearer growth and/or rural development focus. Thus in reviewing the
experience of the Czech Republic and Uganda, the paper aims to identify how the different
institutional, commercial, and logistical challenges have been dealt with, and how the various
benefits have been pursued. More specifically, several advantages of, and challenges to, rural
tourism have been hypothesized. Have these advantages and challenges been encountered in
the case studies? Given that at this stage we can learn more about the process than the impacts,
key questions to ask of the case studies are how they have dealt with potential obstacles and how
they have:

• developed the rural product

• ensured sufficient quality of facilities and inputs
• developed marketing capacity and increased visitor numbers
• dealt with other practical challenges such as accessibility of transport, availability of credit or
Investment.
• built institutional capacity and sufficient political support to resource and develop rural tourism

A case study from the north of Selous Game Reserve, in Tanzania, argues that wildlife tourism
and its contribution to rural livelihoods is below potential, partly due to lack of articulation
between those with tourism, rural development and conservation mandates (Ashley, Mdoe and
Reynolds 2002 ).

Different Approaches to Rural Tourism

This section makes some distinctions between different types of rural tourism and policy
objectives relating to them. It lays the basis for understanding the objectives and contribution of
the two case study initiatives, taking place in the different contexts of Eastern Europe and sub
Saharan Africa.

Agri-tourism, farm tourism and rurally-located tourism

Rural tourism can be taken to mean farm tourism or agri-tourism, but both are sub-components
of tourism in rural space.
• Agri-tourism is when the purpose of the visit has a specific agricultural focus such as being
with animals, enjoying a vineyard.
• Farm tourism is when accommodation for rural tourists is provided on farms. The core activity
is in the wider rural area (walking, boating) but the vast majority of visitors are accommodated
on farms, either working farms or farms converted to accommodation facilities.
• Rural tourism, or rurally-located tourism, can include the above but also campsites, lodges,
safari drives, craft markets, cultural displays, adventure sports, walking trails, heritage sites,
musical events indeed any tourist activity taking place in a rural area.

In Europe, farm tourism plays an important role in rural tourism. For example, in some rural
areas in East Germany (an example being Wittow on the island of Rügen), 80 per cent of
accommodation is provided by working farms or farms that have been converted to
accommodation facilities. In African rural areas there are some commercial guest farms and the
emerging equivalent of home stays in traditional huts, but tourists often stay in purpose-built
tourism accommodation (from luxury lodges to campsites) while visiting rural areas.

There is evidence that farm tourism generates proportionately higher benefits than other tourism
using purpose-built accommodation in a similar area9. However, the relative benefits and also
the costs of adapting farms for tourism purposes have often been evaluated incorrectly. The
investment required to upgrade facilities can be high, and so can the marketing investment to
service a number of fragmented non-experienced part-time entrepreneurs. Returns can be low
given low occupancy rates and high seasonality.

Poland’s experience since the early 1990s provides a case in point: rural farm-based tourism was
seen as a cheap form of tourism that would utilize existing spare capacities in farm houses and
small, unsophisticated catering facilities. However, investment needed was grossly
underestimated (McMahon 1996), given that tourists demand creature comforts including
adequate sanitary facilities. This was a high investment burden for generally small-scale farmers.
Furthermore, marketing costs and the set-up of marketing networks coordinating a large number
of small-scale entrepreneurs were added expenditures that were initially not foreseen. As a
consequence farm tourism was far from a cheap option as was initially thought. Although rural
tourism in Poland is thriving, the government has realized that the returns are very low and that a
main constraint is the large number of small-scale stakeholders that need to be co-ordinate and
marketed (MacMahon1996).

A study by Slee, Farr and Snowdon (1997) analysed the impacts of soft tourism (tourism
accommodation provided by locals in for example farms and hard tourism (accommodation
provided by externals such as time-share companies) on the local rural economy in Scotland.
They found that a much higher proportion of expenditure remains locally or in surrounding areas
when soft tourism providers are used (68.5% of expenditure), compared to hard tourism
providers (only 25.3% of expenditure remains in the local or extended area).

Policy motives: rural growth, tourism product development

Rural tourism as a motor of growth

Strategies to use tourism as a motor of growth in rural areas emerge in different contexts. They
are, at heart, about enabling rural producers to reduce reliance on agriculture, and engage in new
economic opportunities that are competitive in the more globalised markets, which now reach
their doorstep (or farm gate). In Eastern Europe, the emphasis has been more on tourism as a tool
for rural regeneration following agricultural collapse, while in Africa, the emphasis is more on
diversification of under-developed areas.

Regeneration in the face of agricultural decline

In Europe, tourism has long been considered a catalyst for regeneration of rural areas,
particularly where traditional agrarian industries are in decline (Williams and Shaw 1998,
Hoggart, Buller and Black 1995). Studies of rural tourism are predominantly set within a
European (including Eastern European) or North American context, focusing largely on domestic
visitors and economic restructuring. Farm facilities and infrastructure (such as basic transport)
are in place, thus the strategy is to adapt them for tourism purposes, market the rural attractions,
and draw clients, particularly domestic visitors, from the cities. There is evidence that in Europe
rural tourism has made important contributions to rural incomes both at the level of the
individual farmer and more widely in the local community (ETB 1991). While not necessarily
substituting for agricultural income, it has delivered supplementary income and inter-sectoral
linkages. This approach to rural tourism has received priority attention in Eastern Europe since
the fall of the iron curtain and the collapse of communism. The need for rural regeneration has
been immense. In the early 1990s countries in Eastern Europe needed to respond quickly to
previously unknown circumstances: high levels of industrial closure, a loss of Soviet-controlled
markets, break down of the non-competitive and over-staffed agricultural sector and
consequently high unemployment, price inflation and diminishing living standards. High
unemployment due to privatization of large-scale agricultural co-operatives, coupled with a new
freedom to move to urban centers severely depopulated rural areas. At the same time the level of
domestic travel was seriously reduced due to financial constraints, a thirst for the outside world,
and loss of financial subsidies for previous forms of 'social' tourism. Interregional travel, on
which former Eastern Bloc countries depended heavily, was reduced to a minimum.

At the same time, interest by Western visitors in previously unseen countries and attractions
Increased drastically. The early 1990s were characterized by large-scale, short-stay tourism,
Especially from Germany, to formerly closed-off countries such as the Czech Republic.
Although, the overwhelming demand was initially for urban destinations, such as Prague, rural
tourism made sense since Eastern Europe is generally more rural than Western Europe (in terms
of levels of urbanization, and socio-cultural characteristics). Rural areas in the East should be
able to offer an appealing product to the West if appropriately developed and promoted.
Furthermore, rural areas were in dire need of regeneration and means to operate in a market
economy.

Rural diversification of under-developed areas

In developing countries, the language of policy-makers focuses more on diversification than

regeneration of the rural economy. In this context, the problem is not so much the structural
collapse of agriculture, but the insufficiency of agricultural livelihoods, and the search for new
sources of growth and economic opportunity. Smallholder farming is facing growing constraints
(both in terms of local resource base and international competitiveness, Ashley and Maxwell
2001)and cannot meet the needs of a growing population. The last decade has seen consensus
that social investment alone cannot reduce poverty, and that growth is essential. This applies
equally to rural areas, despite their lower comparative advantage; thus attention is crystallizing
on the dilemmas of how to promote the non-farm rural economy (Start 2001).

In this context, tourism is promoted as a new activity, which is supplementary to agriculture.

Although building on existing assets where possible, it is not a matter of simply switching
existing infrastructure to a new purpose. New assets and infrastructure are invariably needed.
Tourism is a means of bringing the concomitants of economic development (infrastructure,
communications, services to an under-developed area. There are of course some rural areas that
have already been transformed into ‘destinations’, sometimes involving depopulation of large
parts in the process: e.g. in Africa, the Massai-Mara in Kenya, the Ngorongoro Crater in
Tanzania, the Okavango Delta in Botswana and Kruger National Park in South Africa are well-
known examples.

Rural tourism to enhance or protect the tourism product

Tourism development planners may share the growth objectives outlined above, or may be
subject to increasing political pressure to show their contribution to them. Even where tourism is
run by separate ministry with its own agenda, demonstrating and expanding the impact of their
industry can be an important goal. A tourism ministry will have to demonstrate its contribution to
national development plans and to poverty targets, to compete for scarce government resources.
In addition, there are other reasons for promoting rural tourism that relate to development of the
tourism product, and this is quite different to the poverty-rooted objectives of promoting rural
development. These are nevertheless important motivations to understand as they influence
wider institutional support for rural tourism.

Enhancing the tourism product

An important objective for tourism planners is to diversify the tourism product (e.g. the
development of culture, adventure tourism) with the aim to encourage visitors to stay longer and,
Ideally, spend more, and/or to develop a more distinguishable destination identity. These ‘new’
features of the rural product can provide the basis for a revised marketing programme (for
example bird-watching in Uganda). Such niche products may well be promoted in quite isolated
rural areas, sold as ‘off the beaten track’ rather than the more developed agricultural areas. Or
they may be proximate to cities and resorts, in order to provide add-on excursions. Thus they
have relevance to different types of rural areas.

Dispersion to protect tourism assets

Another objective of tourism managers, and one shared by conservation professionals, may be to
disperse tourists away from existing ‘honey pots’. There may be many good reasons to
encourage concentrations of tourism activity in one area – such as to limit negative impacts
spreading more widely, to take advantage of economies of scale, or optimize different land uses.
But at times it becomes necessary to take pressure off key sites, particularly if resources are
being over-used or if limits to capacity in peak season are being met. This requires dispersing
tourists geographically, including into surrounding rural areas.

Promoting rural tourism in the Czech Republic

This section looks at initiatives undertaken by a non-governmental organization to develop rural

tourism in the Czech Republic, in a fairly non-supportive policy environment. While the scale of
rural tourism resulting is fairly small so far, the process highlights many of the institutional and
practical challenges, with particular reference to a post-communist transition economy.

Tourism economics and policy post 1989

The early 1990s produced a boom in tourism for Prague, as the city’s architecture and rich
culture were ‘rediscovered’ by Western Europeans curious to visit a country formerly hidden
behind the Iron Curtain. The country’s struggle during the Prague Spring in 1968 and its
charismatic leader, Vaclav Havel’s role in that struggle, increased the fascination of the city as a
tourist destination. As a result, Prague became a synonym for the Czech Republic and the
tourism boom brought US$ 4 billion per annum to the state budget (Czech Tourist Authority
2000) with almost no marketing and promotion. While tourism revenue generated by Prague has
been estimated at 60 per cent of total Czech tourism earnings, the city captures over 80 per cent
of the total earnings since many companies are registered in Prague, although operating
elsewhere.

In the early 1990s, tourism was the responsibility of the Ministry for Economic Affairs with the
overriding objective to facilitate economic development. Little attention appeared to be paid to
strategic development of a long-term, comprehensive tourism policy. Although the Czech
Tourist Authority was established, its budget was relatively limited, less than US$ 400,000 per
annum. Aproposal made to the Ministry for Economic Affairs by the European Centre for Eco
Agro Tourism(ECEAT CZ) to develop alternative forms of tourism in rural areas was rejected on
the basis that ‘alternative’ tourists were not ‘big spenders‘ and this would therefore not be an
economically viable market segment to develop (ECEAT CZ).

ECEAT CZ – European Centre for Eco Agro Tourism

ECEAT CZ is an independent, non-profit, non-governmental Czech organization. ECEAT CZ is

a member of the Europe-wide ECEAT network, ECEAT International ECEAT CZ’s main aims
are:
• to support sustainable rural development through small-scale, environmentally-friendly tourism
• to create new job opportunities for village people
• to enhance the experience and knowledge of village entrepreneurs (education, information,
materials, quality control etc.)

During the 1990s, the structure of tourism to Prague changed considerably. The first boom of
curiosity gave way to the cheaper end of the market, i.e. cheap package deals and student trips.
At the same time competition from other Eastern European destinations such as Budapest
increased.

Although the number of inexpensive package arrivals continued to increase, total visitor numbers
started to decrease marginally by the late 1990s, and total revenue declined markedly. Coupled
with the increasing costs of maintaining and developing infrastructure, the ‘Prague product’
began to falter

Growth of Tourism in the Czech Republic 1991–2000

1991 1992 1993 1994 1996 1998 2000

Foreign arrivals (million people) 51 69 72 101 109 103 104

Foreign exchange income ($US billion) 0.7 1.1 1.6 2.0 4.1 3.7 2.9
Source: Ministry of Regional Development, Tourism in the Czech Republic and Czech Tourist
Authority, Annual Report 2000.Comparable statistics for years before 88-90 are not available 2.
Tourists account for approx 50% of total arrivals. 1993 Czech and Slovak Republic separated
With problems emerging in Prague, and the European Union (EU) focusing on the economic
Development of rural areas, the attention given to rural tourism increased towards the end of the
1990s. The ‘National Development Plan’ developed for the EU accession agenda, included a
plan for countryside development (‘Programmed for Countryside Renewal’). One of the EU
funding criteria was that projects proposed under this plan had to be submitted by villages
associations. Most funding was directed towards basic infrastructure, e.g. sewage reconstruction.
Tourism development was initially just a small part of this programme, with cycle tracks being
the main type of investment. Other more immediate priorities dominated, and a lack of access to
credit to renovate or build new accommodation meant that small-scale tourism entrepreneurs
were discouraged from participating in the programme. Nevertheless, tourism was one element
of the Countryside Renewal Plan and since 2000 there has been an increasing trend to develop
new products, in addition to improving infrastructure. Furthermore, since 1996 the responsibility
for tourism development moved from the Ministry of Economic Affairs to the Ministry for
Regional Development.
Initiatives to develop rural tourism

Despite the Ministry of Economic Affairs’ initial rejection, ECEAT CZ decided to continue to
push for the development of tourism in rural areas. Since 1995, four different (though
overlapping) approaches have been taken to achieve this:

• An initial programme from 1995 to 1998, ‘Tourism at the Service of Rural Development’
(TSRD) to start building capacity, skills and products;
• A project to develop ‘Heritage Trails‘in rural areas, from 1998 to 2000;
• Production of a rural tourism guidebook and other materials;
• On-going political engagement, including further expansion of the Heritage Trail materials and
approach.

An initial project to lay the groundwork

Tourism at the Service of Rural Development (TSRD) started in 1995 and had three sub-themes:
Institutional Capacity, Training in Tourism Skills and Product Development
.
Institutional capacity: The first step in the project was to develop an understanding of the
needs, strengths and weaknesses of all potential partners (government, private sector and civil
society) in implementing a long-term tourism strategy. Capacity building was carried out in five
regions, all of which were later to develop Heritage Trails. This involved a series of one-day
motivational seminars10 exploring the potential for partnerships between local governments,
entrepreneurs and NGOs. This focused on the understanding of potential mutual benefits arising
from joint action, and hence changing attitudes towards adopting sustainable rural tourism
development. The seminars formed the basis for co-operation and supported the Heritage Trails
initiative when it started in 1998.

Training in tourism skills was initiated to serve two aims, a) to increase the quality of service
provision and b) to raise tourism awareness. It was felt that residents of Czech villages were both
Suspicious towards outsiders and as well as unaware of the tourism potential of their
surroundings, and thus uncertain about proposed tourism developments. Furthermore,
participating in democratic decision-making processes was alien to many villagers due to the
previous political context and structures. ECEAT CZ’s initiative involved a skills development
programme which included group work, training and the publication of the book ‘Jedou k nám
hosté’ (‘Guests are coming! or the guide to becoming a rural tourism entrepreneur’) describing
the experiences of entrepreneurs who had been successful in their sustainable tourism activities.
One-day seminars for beginners were financed by local or district governments. Financed by
Prince of Wales Business Forum

Training focused not only on standards for accommodation and service provision but also on the
care for, and the protection of, the village’s natural assets. For many villages in rural areas, the
main, and often only asset, is their relatively unpolluted environment, pristine nature, and the
Traditional way of life. Securing local support in maintaining this environment was therefore
seen as critical to the long term sustainability of tourism as a alternative economic livelihood.
The development skills project was initiated as a long-term programme, part of which was to
develop a country-wide network of ECEAT CZ offices, offering advice to local entrepreneurs.
One element of the skills project was concerned with the certification of quality standards.
Product development focused on the production of a guidebook to country holidays (discussed
further below) and other promotional material.

Heritage Trails (HT)

Despite these small, but nevertheless positive beginnings, progress of the programme was
constrained because of inadequate policy and financial support. Problems of establishing a
consistent partnership with government continued in dealings with the Ministry of Regional
Development. Efforts to build an institutional relationship were hampered by frequently
changing political and civil service staff. As a result, in 1998 the ECEAT CZ board decided to
extend its TSRD programme further and develop new activities that would strengthen its position
with regard to the government. The aim of this extension was not only to create a new tourist
product that would build on the existing skills and products programme but also to:

• Capitalize on the global trend towards ‘alternative’ holidays;

• Realize the full potential of the country’s natural and cultural assets –(the Czech Republic has
11 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, 6 UNESCO Biosphere Reserves, several national parks and
protected areas, and many smaller but unique sights of natural, cultural and technical heritage);
• Motivate those rural areas that had not yet developed their own tourism brand;
• Move beyond accommodation provisions to include additional products that would involve the
wider community;
• Expand co-operation to a wider range of accommodation providers;
• Attract higher income tourists to generate more income for rural communities;
• Strengthen ECEAT CZ‘s position as a partner for central government institutions. By
coincidence, a product that would meet these objectives was developed independently: the
ambitious, 18 month EU PHARE11 project managed by the English not-for-profit company
Ecotourism Ltd. The project was implemented in three countries –(the Czech Republic, the
Republic of Slovakia and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia) and aimed to implement
an innovative product, the Heritage Trails.

The core principle of the PHARE project was that new Heritage Trails should be developed on
the basis of a cross-sector partnership. Thus ECEAT CZ again began to build high level
relationships with the Ministry of Regional Development and the Czech Tourist Authority (CTA)
for project implementation. Concurrently, the Ministry started to prepare the ‘National
Development Plan’ as a 11 The EU PHARE programme was dedicated to Eastern, Central and
South-Eastern European countries previously under Communist regimes and in transition to
market economies. Support for sustainable tourism development has been one of its tools for
regeneration of rural economies across these countries. key tool for the EU accession process.
The Ministry’s willingness to listen and to understand the needs of rural areas was visibly higher
than a year before. However, no financial support was received although institutional support
slowly appeared. A Manual for Operators was produced as part of the PHARE project and this
was promoted as a CTA product in return for CTA's support for the production of maps for the
Heritage Trails, a website and electronic. Thus ECEAT CZ gained the right to use the official
CTA logo, and the Heritage Trails became a part of the official Czech tourist offer.

Heritage Trails

Linking several tourism facilities and products located within a geographic area and marketing
them in unity has been the essence of the 'heritage trails'. The aims are to design a marketable
product; to increase the number of visitors and revenue; to increase synergy effects between the
variety of producers; to cut marketing and administrative expenditure; and to ease access to the
product. The individual enterprises within the trail remain separately owned but co-ordinate
action is required in terms of developing infrastructure, signage, liasing with in-bound agents,
pricing and marketing. The trail is not a fixed product in terms of opportunities to visit it. It can
be visited in part or as a whole, guided or self-guided, and by various means of transport.
However, it is also sold as a package to tourist via a tour operator. Differing objectives of
partners and participants emerged. For example:

• ECEAT wanted successful HTs in North and South Moravia that would provide a pilot scheme,
which could be ‘rolled out’ in other regions within the Czech Republic and internationally
through ECEAT's international network.
• During early implementation, environmental activists tried to 'highjack' the project for their
fight against a planned road and tunnel connection under the Jeseniky mountains to Poland.
• Entrepreneurs in both Moravian regions expected immediate results in the form of increased
visitor arrivals.
• Local and District Governments expected the establishment of an association that would be
able to solve the bottlenecks related to tourism development within their own districts. Within
the time-frame of the project two Heritage Trails were developed, one in Northern Moravia
and one in Southern Moravia. The process involved four key steps:
1. Building partnerships
2. Identifying tourism products of the trail
3. Training stakeholders and developing strategies
4. Marketing the trail.

Although the PHARE project ended in 2000, ECEAT has continued to roll out the concept and
share the training materials and approach. Thus there are now five HTs:
1. The Pradede HT in Northern Moravia: Sum perk, Bruntal, and Jesenik Districts
2. The Wine lands HT in Southern Moravia: Znojmo, Uherske Hradiste, Brno Districts
And three new HTs based on replication and transfer of skills:
3. Trebic, Jihlava, Jindrichuv Hradec Districts
4. Decin, Litomerice, Usti, Ceska Lipa Districts

Making a Heritage Trail

Establish partnerships to create the Heritage Trail

• Core partners needed to be identified before funds could be received for enterprise
development: e.g. a UK based organization, and one or two destination organizations as lead
partners.
• Post receipt of funding, priority work in destination is to build on these partnerships and create
further partnerships through a stakeholder process that evolves from the activities outlined in the
steps below.

Identify the area and tourism products of the ‘trail’ with partner organization(s)

• Clarify geographic area of the trail. This can include, rural, urban, or a mix of these
environments, usually dependent on the objectives of the enterprise development intervention.
• Clarify the products to be included, such as:

I. Heritage sites – natural and cultural (tombs, museums, castles, national parks, rivers, lakes)
II. Cultural interest – traditional and modern arts, crafts, music, dance, wine & beer making.
III. Accommodation, food and drink providers (hotels, guest-houses, B & B, self-catering,
campsites, restaurants, inns)

• Decide on how these products will be accessed and how they will be linked to create the trail –
i.e. what forms of transport can be used, but also what is ‘unique’ about the trail and what is has
to offer.

Train ‘trail’ stakeholders with partner organization(s)

• Market analysis of tourism markets to identify which tourists to target

• Develop a marketing strategy that meets identified demand with tourism producer capacity.
• Train an in-bound tour operator and/or partner organization(s) to manage arrivals, transfers,
departures, and travelling between each location on the trail – walking paths, cycle routes, car
hire, and public transport. This includes ensuring HT sign-posts are in place on the trail and
existing maps, and specially created HT maps, are available for tourist information packages.
• Decide on price that tour operators should charge for the HT package including transport to
destination.

Market the Heritage Trail

• Prepare marketing materials – brochures, maps for self-guided tourists, web site, video, CD
ROM, ezine.
• Distribute materials to identified markets – national tourist board offices, tour operators.
• Direct marketing through domestic and overseas tour operators contacted by HT management,
either by visits (Travel Fairs, arranged appointments), or by email and telephone.

Materials and standards for rural tourism products

As part of the initial project, ECEAT CZ produced a guidebook (‘A Countryside Holiday
Guidebook’) featuring all types of accommodation, including farms, campsites, self-catering,
B&B and small hotels. Table 3 below illustrates the widespread use of the book and the increase
in visitor numbers since 1993. To date, the majority of visitors have been Dutch, preferring
simple campsites and attracted by landscape characteristics, affordability, and the absence of
mass-tourism.

Although these types of tourists generally spend limited amounts of money, the low investment
required to establish simple campsites is seen as a cost effective way to develop tourism
experience. Other tourists, such as the domestic, German and Belgian markets, seem to prefer
self-catering accommodation, B&B s and small village hotels. These types of accommodation
have increased in number since 1999 in response to increased promotion in the tourist originating
countries.

Number of guests identifying accommodation through ‘A Countryside Holiday

Guidebook’

1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001

300 710 667 1903 1547 2355 2813 3487 3995

Marketing material specific to the Heritage Trails was produced, both in printed and electronic
form, including maps, an e-zone, and a website. In addition, the HT project built relationships
with tour operators in originating countries such as The Netherlands, Germany, UK, France and
Belgium and CTA marketed the product through their offices abroad.

Efforts to develop a certification scheme made considerable progress and two different schemes
are presently in operation in the Czech Republic. The first scheme relates to accommodation
quality standards and includes several different rating schemes depending on the different types
of accommodation provider. Most of these accommodation quality schemes are either run by
tourism trade bodies or governmental agencies. The second certification scheme refers to
contributions to ecological and heritage protection, and is run by ECEAT but implemented under
bilateral contracts by the Union of the Czech Rural Entrepreneurs, a sub-organization of the
Ministry for Regional Development. The provider receives a certificate and right to show the
logo which indicates their contribution to the protection of the environment and/or heritage of the
area.

ECEAT CZ is now working with several ‘kraj’ (counties) to develop an integrated set of tools
for sustainable tourism development replicating the methodologies used for partnership building,
and producing a ‘Countryside Holiday Guidebook’ for each county. Additional HTs have also
been created in Bohemia.

Progress, challenges, impacts, and critical factors

The following section looks at the main areas in which progress has been made by the initiatives,
and any indicators of impact. It particularly considers progress in dealing with the key issues for
rural tourism product development:
• Building capacity and quality
• Marketing
• Addressing practical constraints
• Institutional support

While impacts on livelihoods of poor people need to be assessed, there is at this stage
insufficient data available. Key elements of the approach that have emerged as useful are
identified, along with the main challenges.

Progress and challenges, Product development

As indicated above, five HTs were created. Of the first two, the Northern Moravian HT has
Flourished. Despite the difficulties, at the outset of creating the HT, and of finding a common
denominator to unify local people’s efforts to build a cultural identity12, a follow on EU project,
‘Pradede’ (Forefather’s Land), did achieve this unity of purpose. In addition the HT team had a
strong local project manager who was able to drive the project. This and the fact that a local
Association had already been developed for the HT, helped to ensure local ownership of the new
Product and to embed the process of collective decision-making, usually such an anathema in
post communist countries.

The Southern Moravia HT was based on viticulture, and the trail was marketed as the ‘Moravian
Wine lands Heritage Trails’. This trail has stagnated due to the absence of a core team to build
cohesion and purpose, but also because it did not have an additional follow-up project.

Attracting tourists

As the Guidebook is used by approximately 4,000 tourists per year who book via ECEAT. In
addition, it is estimated that two to three times as many book accommodation directly with the
farms. The Heritage Trails project itself attracted a total of 500 tourists in both North and South
Moravia between 2000 and 2002 (according to tour operator sales) of which by far the largest
number visit the Northern Moravian Trail (between 110 and 170 visitors per year). As with the
farms, it is difficult to estimate how many tourists visit the trails independently.

Building tourism capacity and skills

Approximately 15 one-day training sessions were held with about 225 potential, small-scale
Entrepreneurs in seven districts. The goal was to encourage entrepreneurial newcomers to start-
up by sharing information with others that have just done so. It is difficult to measure the direct
impacts of these training sessions since other factors may be involved in decisions to set up a
new enterprise. However, the activities led to the setting up of the Jeseniky independent HT
Association ‘Pradedova rise’ (Praded´s land) which has been instrumental in the survival of the
Northern Moravia (Pradede) trail. The training also helped to create a network of new tourism
entrepreneurs which it is hoped will lead to longer-term capacity development through the
sharing of experience.

Building institutional collaboration

Four one-day training sessions were held in order to bring together three stakeholders:
Governmental and public bodies, entrepreneurs and NGOs. –These training sessions were used
for discussing tourist marketing, communication and co-operation. The results have been mixed.
Although establishing partnerships was one of the first steps in the HT implementation process,
in Southern Moravia this did not translate into setting-up a HT producers association as has
happened in Northern Moravia. Initial participation demonstrated a willingness to develop and
exchange ideas among the trail providers, and to implement those ideas (the Wine Trail), but
joint action could not be maintained. The HT project did however consolidate an effective
partnership between ECEATCZ, the government (Czech Tourist Authority, and regional
governments – ‘kraj’) and private sector companies (inbound tour operators, foreign tour
operators).

Generating local income

Revenue to local households that is directly attributable to these initiatives and easily measurable
is quite small so far. Holiday packages for the Heritage Trails are priced at around €300 per
person and this has generated a total of €150,000 to date. Of this, the local operator’s received
around 3012 This area had been resettled after World War 2, and there was no common cultural
heritage. Under Phare Credo, a cross-border programme that in this case is with Poland just north
of the Praded mountain area.

per cent, (around €45,000), €90,000 remained with local entrepreneurs, while 10 per cent
(€15,000) went to ECEAT CZ, for financing further development, funding and policy work.
Around 16 accommodation providers participate in the project resulting in an average income of
€5,625 over the two years between 2000-02. This is about the same as an individual could earn
in a year in the Czech Republic based on the average annual salary of CZK 13,000 (€433 per
month, or €5,196 annually).

However, this does not include earnings from other tourists who do not pass through ECEAT
Bookings , and earnings from spin-off enterprise. Earnings to date are clearly just a start in what
Promises to be an expanding product. For tourists booking farm accommodation via the Country
Holidays guide (i.e not on the Heritage Trail package), the average length of stay is nine days.
With an average expenditure per family of three people of around CZK 500 (€16.7) per night this
amounts to a total income of over €200,000 per year, much of which would ideally benefit the
local communities.

Estimating ‘leakages’ is difficult, but they do occur largely because providing food and drink for
tourists in all types of accommodation is cheaper when bought from supermarkets, some of
which are now owned or licensed by foreign retail companies. Small independent and organic
producers of farm produce cannot compete against the low prices from large private sector
farms. Besides, certain food, drink and other supplies needed to accommodate tourists are often
not available locally.

Changing local attitudes towards tourism

A less obvious impact, but important over the long-term, is a change in attitudes towards
Sustainable tourism and its delivery by a large number of those stakeholders who participated in
Partnership workshops and marketing training. From limited understanding and a distrust of
change, participants in the ECEAT CZ training programmes achieved a substantive shift in their
attitudes to rural tourism development.

Both trail experiences to date suggest that positive social impacts occur only when strong
leadership, and repeated and new training opportunities are offered. These enable collective
action among trail providers to deliver consistently good standard products. When this happens,
and tourists do return on repeat visits as in the case of Jeseniky, the community is likely to
support rural tourism development, and new partnerships can be built, such as with Polish
communities across the border.

Enhancing environmental sustainability of tourism

At the local level, the understanding of the relationship between commercial sustainability,
protection and conservation of natural and cultural assets is taking time to develop. Evaluation
suggests five rather than two years of intensive investment in education and support are needed
to properly embed understanding of the importance of maintaining this balance. However, the
ECEATCZ environmental certification scheme has been accepted at national level, and tour
operators who wish to use the HT name and logo have to pay 10 per cent of their HT revenue to
ECEAT CZ. Recently, agreement has been reached with the Ministry of Environment for
ECEAT CZ to start a programme for an eco-certification system throughout the Czech Republic
to include urban areas and go beyond the rural areas in which it works at present.\

Building policy support for rural tourism

Government support for tourism dispersion and diversification into the rural economy has
partially come as a result of ECEAT CZ’s persistence in presenting and demonstrating
alternative forms of tourism development over the past eight years. Final adoption of the HTs as
a CTA marketed product in 2000 was a substantial victory. Government policy towards
dispersion is now more proactive. In early October 2002, a high profile, national seminar on the
countryside was opened by President Havel and attended by government ministers (agriculture,
economy, environment and culture). Here, proposals were put forward for joint action on
sustainable rural tourism, calling for a joint forum of Ministries, the Tourist Board, ‘Kraj’
(county governments) to be established. The objectives are to change restrictive laws and to
support the promotion of rural tourism entrepreneurs. The aim is to create an official country-
wide unified tourism product with its own logo. Following the autumn elections however the
new Minister for Regional Development has appointed a new director of CTA, who now decided
to focus on Prague, Castles and Spas.
However at the county level it seems more successful. Some counties have now introduced a
new local subsidy programme for the improvement of rural tourism infrastructure (operational in
N.Moravia, while the Highlands county is planning this for 2003).

Some counties have also started to prepare local Countryside Holiday Guidebooks (for example
N. and S. Moravia, Highlands, S. Bohemia) and it is hoped that eventually all counties will
follow suit. The Heritage Trail concept still requires further promotion at the county level as its
objectives and potential are still not fully understood and supported. It is anticipated that the
products will be marketed by the counties themselves through exhibitions, regional road shows
and travel fairs. In this way, the HT and countryside products will become national products
supporting a national tourism strategy that does focus on dispersal and diversification of Czech
tourism.

Key obstacles and ingredients of success

Key challenges to rural tourism development in the Czech Republic include:

• Lack of government support;

• Need for co-ordination and local leadership to make the concept of Heritage Trails work.
Because they involve a range of small-scale tourism products and providers, and the very
concept rests on linking these conceptually and logistically for the tourist, co-ordination is
essential. But where the local leadership to achieve this has been lacking, the HT concept has
not flourished.
• Lack of statistics and feedback (via government) for adaptive management and marketing.
• Lack of resources for updating marketing material.
• Slow pace, small scale of economic impacts to date.
• Uptake of the new product. HT is constrained by strong competition from other tourism
Destinations in the Czech Republic (in particular Prague), and from other packages also sold by
Tour operators. While commercial competitiveness is sufficient for some gradual success in at
least some of the sites and areas, the investment in rural tourism cannot create a sudden boom.
However, some particularly valuable elements of the Heritage Trail strategy emerge:
• On-going and repeated attempts to build institutional collaboration. Although progress has been
slow, institutional collaboration does occur.
• Defining the rural product through the creation of ‘heritage trails.
• Providing approach, tools, and marketing material that could easily be replicated and taken up
by others (particularly at kraj level). Thus the initial project work could serve effectively as a
Demonstration for catalyzing wider change. This is important to note given the donor shift away
from projects.
• Addressing marketing and customer information at the same time as developing the product
and resource.
• Working with counties (kraj) as they have gained an administrative role, and helping them
develop their interest in rural tourism promotion in very practical ways.
Development of Rural Tourism through Heritage Trails in Uganda
Tourism trends, policy and rural tourism objectives
Historically, tourism was Uganda’s second most important export after coffee. In 1970, 102,000
foreign visitors were recorded for Murchison Falls National Park. This contrasts with 5,800
recorded in 1996 for the same Park (Mann 1998). The collapse in tourism volumes has been
mirrored by a collapse in the large mammal populations in protected areas, which were a key
tourism asset.
Since the restoration of political stability in 1986, tourism has re-emerged on the policy agenda,
but tourism development still faces many obstacles. An ambitious Tourism Master Plan drawn
up a decade ago (UNDP/WTO 1993) set targets for development and arrivals that have so far not
Transpired. Inadequate government resources have been unable to provide the necessary
framework for tourism development and the protection of its valuable natural and cultural
resource base. The tourism sector has not been recognized as a priority development sector in
wider government circles. In 1996, tourism moved from having its own Ministry, the Ministry of
Tourism, Wildlife and Antiquities, to being part of the larger Ministry of Tourism, Trade and
Industry (MTTI), and its financial and human resource capacity was heavily reduced. Tourism
has lacked political support in the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development
(MFPED) and therefore is not eligible for central Poverty Action Funds (PAF) and not given
priority in the Medium Term Expenditure Framework. Despite the formulation of the new
tourism policy, this situation is not expected to change in the near future. Hence donor resources
will be highly significant in the implementation of the new tourism policy framework, but donor
support to date has been fragmented. The capacity of the sector is likely to be further weakened
by an impending merger of the Uganda Tourism Board (UTB), the Uganda Investment Authority
(UIA) and the Uganda Export Promotions Board (UEPB) that has been highly contested by the
private sector and UTB. The private sector has also been weak and fragmented.
Uganda’s tourism product is also problematic. The legacy of Idi Amin and more recent
insecurity on its borders has created an image problem (Holm-Petersen 2002). Uganda has to
compete with other African destinations (eg. Kenya, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia
and more recently (South Africa). Gorilla tourism has been the only niche where it had a
competitive edge but this led to a monoculture approach to tourism development and effectively
put a ceiling on the industry as only about 4,000 gorilla tracking permits are available annually.
It is estimated that currently only 5,000 tourists visit Uganda each year and 10,000 expatriate
residents participate in tourist activities(Mann 1998).

On the positive side, Uganda has by-passed mass tourism, albeit unintentionally, because of its
past troubles, and is well positioned to take advantage of newer trends, and alternative forms of
tourism that can protect natural resources and stimulate cultural diversity while generating
economic growth. A new strategic plan and a tourism development policy have been developed
to provide a framework to transform tourism into a major economic sector and a vehicle for
poverty alleviation (MTTI 2002). The new tourism policy has been presented to Cabinet for
approval, before being put into legislation. The overall policy objective is for tourist arrivals to
reach a ‘critical mass’, for the sector to become a vehicle for development and to sustain
Protected Areas (PAs). The policy emphasizes ‘large-scale participation of communities’ and
cultural tourism, including handicraft development, as a rural income generating activity. It also
embraces a bottom-up principle of supporting developments at district level, again with a focus
on community-based tourism development. Various donor programmes are supporting product
and infrastructure development. That will encourage niche product diversification and promotion
of avi-tourism (bird watching), mountaineering, sport fishing, white water rafting, primate
viewing, eco-tourism, cultural and community-based tourism (Mann 2001).

Diversification and dispersal of tourism into rural areas have been strongly supported by the
Government, particularly the UTB, for two main reasons. Firstly, UTB launched a diversification
programme in the mid-1990s and community and cultural tourism were identified as important
niche products to redevelop international tourism. Thus rural tourism is seen as a means to
improve and expand the product. Secondly, it was recognised that community tourism could
contribute to wider national development objectives enshrined in Uganda’s Comprehensive
Development Framework (CDF) and the Poverty Eradication Action Plan (PEAP) (which has
guided government policy formulation since 1997).

In marketing Uganda, UTB emphasizes a circuit of nature-based attractions predominantly in the

West and south-west: Murchison Falls National Park, Kibale Forest National Park, Queen
Elizabeth National Park, Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park and Lake Mburo National
Park. Other important tourist sites outside this circuit include white water rafting, the Source of
the Nile and the Ssese Islands in Lake Victoria. Tourism development in the North has been
constrained by insecurity. This approach is the antithesis of the traditional approach to tourism in
developing countries, where ‘honey pot’ development entails the building of large and exclusive
resort hotels by foreign investors, ring-fenced to keep the surrounding poverty at bay.

The Heritage Trails Initiative

The concept

Building on the marketing efforts of UTB, an initiative to develop and market a new rural
tourism product, a Heritage Trail (HT), was conceived in the late nineties. A Heritage Trails
Project 1999-2002 was established as a partnership between three organizations: the Kabaka
Foundation, Action for Conservation through Tourism (ACT), and the Uganda Community
Tourism Association (UCOTA). The Kabaka Foundation is an indigenous Ugandan NGO,
established by the King (Kabaka) of Buganda – a traditional kingdom within Uganda restored by
the current President Yoweri Museveni. ACT is a British charity and UCOTA is a tourism
producers’ association, formed in the mid-1990s ‘to encourage quality community-based tourism
with the aim of benefiting communities through sustainable development’ (Williams, White and
Spenceley 2001).

As in the Czech case, a Heritage Trail was seen as a way of defining and creating a rural tourism
product. The project’s aim was to establish a pilot heritage trail linking a number of cultural sites
in the Buganda Kingdom to be marketed as one product. The link between the sites was the
common promotional theme, the ‘Kabaka’s (King’s) Trail’, rather than a physical route. The
project aimed to facilitate the creation of local community tourism associations at each site,
which would develop and manage tourism services and facilities.
The design of the project rested on some core considerations and principles:-

1. It explicitly evolved from community-based tourism, with a focus on the social and
Economic benefits of a trail-based tourism product for local communities.
2. It focused on the importance and potential of cultural revitalization. In the Kingdom of
Buganda, as elsewhere in Uganda, much of Uganda’s rich cultural heritage fell into disrepair
during the civil strife under Presidents Amin and Obote. The Kabaka Foundation and ACT
identified tourism as a tool to revitalize cultural sites and to reduce poverty amongst
marginalized communities who are the traditional custodians of the heritage.
3. In connection with the first two points, the project focused on creating community institutions,
not just supporting individual entrepreneurs. Community associations were seen as the guardians
of culture, the developers of the tourism resource, and the agents for community benefit. This is
more in line with a development approach in rural areas than a typical small business approach.

The design of the project was also influenced by security considerations. In 1999, a group of
tourists on a gorilla-watching holiday in the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park in the far
South west of the country were killed by rebels from Rwanda. As a result it was decided to
locate the development of a pilot heritage trail near to Kampala, and also to focus initially on the
domestic tourist market (ex-pat residents, Ugandans and school children), since international
arrivals had fallen sharply following the incident. Other strong reasons to develop the trail in this
central area were that it fell within the traditional kingdom of Buganda and the project had the
strong support of the Kabaka (King). Although these sites are within 45 minutes of the capital
city, a baseline study, conducted for the project in 2000, showed that they remain on the
periphery of mainstream economic activity, lack access to essential services and infrastructure
and exhibit high levels of poverty.

The objectives of the heritage trail project were therefore defined as follows (HTU 2002):-

• To demonstrate how tourism can be harnessed for poverty alleviation;

• To conserve natural and cultural assets through education and understanding of sustainable
Tourism development;
• To assist communities to participate in the tourism opportunity and to influence policy making
in this area.
• To strengthen local institutions, particularly UCOTA.

Approach and strategies

The sites to be included in the Buganda Heritage Trail were identified by stakeholders such as
Kingdom officials and the Commissioner of Antiquities. Extensive field visits were undertaken
and in November 1999 nine sites with the highest tourism potential were selected on the basis
of:-
• Proximity to the capital
• Accessibility
• Attraction
• Type of site
• Historical significance
• Marketable product theme
• Community compatibility

However, project implementation only proceeded with six of the nine sites. The reasons why
Implementation couldn’t proceed at three sites were varied. They included a lack of community
Cohesion and/or motivation, the community was difficult to define, insurmountable political
Sensitivities, other agencies were providing assistance and/or it was questionable whether
incomes generated would benefit the intended beneficiaries.

Heritage Trails Uganda Project Activities Year Main Activities

1
• Trail site identification, market research and site selection.
• Dialogue with local site stakeholders to confirm interest in participation and exploration of
Land user rights and/or revenue sharing agreements.
• Creation of site community tourism associations where appropriate.
• On-site handicraft workshops to facilitate income-generation in the short-term and mobilize
Community members.
• Baseline socio-economic survey of communities and historical site research.
• Tourism and conservation awareness building.

2
• Participatory business development planning.
• Implementation of the community training programme.
• Implementation of site plans.

3
• Production of promotional and educational materials.
• Further community training.
• Further site development.
• Launch of the pilot trail and implementation of the marketing strategy.
• Review and forward planning.
• Development of other trails country-wide.
On-site community work

This initially focused on building the capacity of new legally-registered community-based

tourism institutions. Community members were mobilized through local leaders such as elected
councilors and cultural guardians and attended participatory seminars to develop a constitution
and elect an Executive. To participate in the activities of the association, community members
pay a membership fee. Of the 215 total members, 135 or 63 per cent are women.

Other on-site activities included a training programme, restoration of cultural assets (involving
Training in traditional building skills), exchange visits within Uganda and to Tanzania, and
business planning. A number of potential income-generating activities were identified through a
participatory planning process and assessed through business planning training. However,
assessing the commercial sustainability of these micro-enterprises proved a particularly
challenging part of the project due to low levels of education. Despite follow-up training, some
of the community associations find the business plans difficult to use effectively.

Clarifying the land rights of the new associations was a critical factor in the project. The Kabaka
Foundation acted as a facilitator in negotiations with the Kingdom of Buganda. The three
tourism associations operating on King’s land14 were given guaranteed use rights. A legal
agreement was made stipulating that the three associations were required to give 30 per cent of
the net entrance fee collected at each site to the Buganda Kingdom administration for
maintenance of other sites. The remaining 70 per cent and all other income from their activities
(e.g. guiding, handicraft sales, cultural entertainment) accrues to the association and its members.
This agreement provided new incentives for the local community to work together with each
other and the traditional cultural institution.

Community Tourism Action Groups on the Kabaka’s Trail

Still in the process of being tested (Ashley 1999, Holland 2002). Due to a lack of documented
case studies, the Heritage Trails Project in Uganda has developed its own set of indicators for
monitoring project progress. These cover both positive and negative impacts, with a focus on the
impacts on livelihoods at local level. They cover the following impact areas:-

• Empowerment, networking and dissemination (e.g. number of community association

members, number of members elected to the UCOTA Executive, number of new partnerships
formed, number of media exposures).
• Skills training (e.g. number of community association members trained in business
development, guiding etc).
• Enterprise development (e.g. number of tourism services provided, number employed number
of visitors).
• Access to essential resources (e.g. number of community development projects benefiting from
Tourism enterprise development).
• Conservation of natural and cultural assets and values (e.g. number of renovated cultural
structures, number of cultural guardians resuming and/or withdrawing from traditional roles).
Data collected on these to date is used below to consider progress against the key issues for rural
Tourism identified above, and also considered in the Czech case study. At the time of writing the
Community tourism associations have only been operational for one year and the marketing
strategy has not been fully implemented, thus it is again early to assess impacts, particularly on
livelihoods.

Product development

The foundations for a new tourism product in Uganda have been developed. The project has
Focused on creating associations, restoring sites as products, and developing skills. While the
Tourism products now exist they are not yet thriving. However, each association has developed
at least three micro-enterprises including guiding around the cultural site, handicrafts and
cultural entertainment. Sourcing of raw materials such as spear grass and reeds for the traditional
cultural structures pose a challenge. A recent need assessment15 carried out in June 2002
highlighted that a main operational difficulty for most of the trail groups was a lack of raw
materials. These raw materials used to be freely available locally or donated by loyal subjects,
but due to agriculture practices (particularly livestock grazing) and increased settlement, the
materials have to be transported, incurring transport costs.

Local capacity and product quality

The project has focused on institution building of associations as much as developing

Entrepreneurship, and it is still very early to make judgments with regard to acquisition of
business skills. The quality of micro-enterprises inevitably varies across the associations
depending on their capacity, as does their potential to diversify service provision. For example,
the traditional group of Baagalayaze Heritage Site is of a very high standard and perform at local
functions as well as on-site. Maintaining service quality can be especially challenging as several
sites lack reliable telephone communications for advance notice of bookings. In the basic needs
assessment, five out of six trail groups identified the lack of telephones as a main operational
challenge. Though UCOTA plays a 15 UCOTA Membership Information questionnaire survey,
June 2002.

Role in facilitating bookings and providing other support to community associations, it is still
also in need of external technical support. A key challenge identified by the community tourism
associations is a lack of financial resources to develop and maintain product quality and
reliability. An initial low level of visitors is a barrier to gaining such finance. Marketing remains
a challenge to the community associations, in particular the marketing of handicrafts from which
they can generate income even when visitor numbers are low.

Local benefits: financial and other

The community tourism associations have earned some money from paying visitors to the sites,
Although visitor numbers are still too low to make a significant impact. However, visitor
numbers to one of the better known sites, Ssezibwa Falls, have doubled and the association
employs two paid guides (the other sites have volunteer guides). The site earned 875,300/=
Uganda Shillings, (approximately GBP £340) between January and November 2002 from
entrance fees.
In addition to visitor fees, sales of handicrafts to the UCOTA shop generated 425,000 Uganda
Shillings (GBP £170) worth of business for five of the associations between January and August
2001 (the shop was temporarily closed after August 2001). Total income is thought to exceed
this as crafts have also been sold on-site, for example, book keeping records at Baagalayaze
show that 90 per cent of craft sales were made on-site in 2001. It is anticipated that craft sales
through UCOTA will also increase through technical assistance from Tradecraft and the
McKnight Foundation. In addition to income, two forms of non-financial benefits are considered
particularly important impacts of the projects. The first is the revival of cultural values and
associated social networks. Secondly, the involvement of community members in participatory
and business planning is important for developing local capacity, even if this is not immediately
reflected in enterprise development and revenue.

Marketing

To date visitor numbers have been low, partly because the marketing strategy has not yet been
fully implemented (especially for the domestic market). It is anticipated that visitor numbers will
grow, however, as several international schools in Kampala have expressed interest and local
ground handlers are currently incorporating trail sites into their itineraries. The proximity of the
trail sites to Kampala should facilitate uptake by the domestic market, while the fact that three of
the sites are also located on the main tourist routes increases their accessibility for international
visitors. However, a constraint for two sites (Katereke and Wamala Tombs) is the poor state of
the access dirt road, particularly in the rainy season.

Perceptions of insecurity have also constrained growth of the international tourism sector.
Security in protected areas in the west and south-west has improved but the situation has
deteriorated further north due to a rebel insurgency. Marketing material for the pilot trail in
Uganda to date consists of brochures, flyers for international trade fairs, mini ‘info point’ cards, a
web site (www.culturalheritagetrails.com). Familiarization trips for local ground handlers and
schools have been particularly successful. The project is currently reviewing its marketing
strategy with more emphasis on cost-effective methods to attract the domestic market (e.g. radio
and TV adverts, distribution of marketing materials through ex-pat networks). In the longer term
UCOTA will be responsible for marketing the trail sites as part of its cultural product line. The
pilot trail has the support of the Uganda Tourist Board and is featured on its web-site
(www.visituganda.com).

Creating institutional capacity and supportive policy

The project focused on institutional strengthening of UCOTA, in terms of capacity building for
organizational management, marketing, fund-raising and practical skills such as in computing
and driving. An internal evaluation report concluded that overall the capacity building
programme was success (Dixey 2002). In particular, residential courses enabled the newly
elected UCOTA Executive who resides in different parts of Uganda to constructively address a
management transition. This capacity-building process was, however, just the beginning of a
much longer institutional strengthening programme that is being continued throughout 2002 with
additional resources.
In 1999 there was no Government tourism or culture policy although the wider policy framework
and therefore UTB and MTTI were supportive of poverty alleviation through rural tourism
Development. A key achievement of the project was that it was very influential in shaping the
new draft national tourism and culture policies.

Implications for Developing Rural Tourism

The two case studies share some similarities, despite the very different contexts. Both sought to
develop a rural tourism product by marketing a package of attractions as a ‘trail’. Both invested
much of their effort to work at the local level, and sought to build an association to co-ordinate
the diverse community members or service providers. In both cases, there are associations that
have thrived and others that have ground to a halt. Both also focused on building relationships
with policy-makers and a network of other institutions, and have gone on to use this to replicate
the trail concept. In both cases, marketing was undertaken by the project rather than by the local
service providers.

There are also considerable differences. The Ugandan initiative benefited from a high level of
Government support from the start compared to relative disinterest in the Czech Republic.
However, it also had to grapple with a much higher degree of underdevelopment, in terms of
local skills and infrastructure. This section briefly reviews what light can be shed on the key
issues for rural tourism, based on the analysis of the strategies, progress and obstacles of the two
case studies. In doing this, it returns to the themes and key issues outlined in Section 2, and also
draw on other rural tourism examples to amplify points. In order to identify broader lessons, the
analysis necessarily moves up from describing details to a level of generalizations, none of
which will be applicable in all rural tourism situations. Thus this section should be interpreted as
highlighting implications of wider relevance that can be drawn from these case studies, but not
providing a blueprint for rural tourism development.

Key Issues

Creating a rural product

These Heritage Trails were not created in rural sites of exceptional tourism value but in attractive
Rural settings with some undeveloped assets (such as for example culture, horticulture). The
heritage trails demonstrate the value of packaging an array of attractions as a ‘trail’. The trail
concept is fundamentally a marketing tool, providing a brand image in the mind of the consumer.
But it can also be an organizing and mobilizing tool to bring together producers on the ground.
This is likely to be particularly important in rural areas, where most products and producers are
small-scale, and need to work together to gain economies of scale (e.g. in marketing, accessing
training). The value of promoting a rural product as a trail is also evident in a South African case
described by Rogerson (2002).The implication is that for the more typical rural areas (not the
exceptional sites), use of a trail concept or other means of packaging and branding can be useful
ways to strengthen local tourism product. Ensuring sufficient quality of the product and services
This has proved to be a big problem in Uganda, given the limited time frame to date, low levels
of education, lack of any previous tourism experience in the rural areas, and lack of local
investment funds. A similar example comes from the Amadiba Horse and Hiking Trail on South
Africa’s Wild Coast, which is a community project based on a strong asset (beautiful
undeveloped coastline) providing horseback trails and hiking. However, the NGO involved has
also been struggling to raise.

Standards of guiding and accommodation to sufficient levels (Ntshona 2002). Quality appears to
have been less of a problem in the Czech Republic where, although the enterprise culture was
new, general skill levels were higher. In particular, the trails in the Czech Republic could make
use of the existing certification programmes, which helped to set, and encourage, quality
standards. The implication is that ensuring sufficient quality of rural tourism services can be a
big challenge, particularly in poor developing countries, and requires substantial investment in
training. Investing in marketing and attracting visitors.

It was suggested earlier, drawing on an example from Poland, that one problem in rural tourism
is that a diversity of small producers struggle to invest sufficiently in marketing. This appears to
have been borne out by these two case studies as in neither case are the local service providers
themselves yet doing the marketing. ECEAT CZ and the Ugandan Heritage Trails Project have
produced marketing material and made links with private operators, as well as the National
Tourism Organisation. The same applies to the Amadiba trail in South Africa, where marketing
is done by a NGO. Even with NGO resources invested in marketing, the number of visitors
attracted so far has been low. In the Ugandan case, market research was highlighted as very
valuable, though not extensive enough. The implication is that marketing emerges as a major
challenge for rural tourism entrepreneurs. In such situations, it is important to link them to an
outside institution that can invest in marketing for the initial period, whether this is a project,
NGO, or Government Tourism Organisation. Market research from early stages onwards is a
necessary requirement and invaluable.

Dealing with practical, logistical and implementation challenges

Both projects encountered a conflict between an ambitious design and limited time scale and
resources. Training was delayed or too short and skills development not always sufficient.
Project funding was too short. The implication here is that building rural tourism is a long-term
and slow process, and needs to be planned and resourced as such.

Building institutional networks and policy support

Whereas the general picture is that support for rural tourism is better established in Eastern
Europe than sub-Saharan Africa, the situation in the two cases reviewed here was the reverse: the
Czech project struggled to win recognition from the Tourism Board, and even then was
constrained by lack of tangible support, while the Uganda project had strong policy backing from
the start. This made a particular difference to the degree in which a common marketing strategy
was developed and supported. On the other hand however, in terms of visitor arrivals the
Heritage Trails in the Czech Republic have proven to be considerably more successful than the
Ugandan trails. In addition to working directly with tourism policy makers, both projects sought
to develop collaboration with a wider array of institutions: local councils in the Czech Republic,
NGO’s in Uganda. Several considerations suggest that this institutional collaboration was very
important:-
• In both cases, the initial Heritage Trails are only pilot sites, to act as the basis for wider
Replication. Replication depends on uptake of the concept and methods by others rather than
perpetual expansion of a project.
• In both cases, a time-bound fixed-resourced project appeared to be too limited for the rural
development process, making it all the more important that an on-going process to support rural
Tourism is built in other institutions.
• While both these cases have marked success in building institutional collaboration, examples
from elsewhere indicate how the lack of institutional co-ordination can block rural tourism. For
example, in South Africa’s Wild Coast, an area of considerable tourism potential, the Amadiba
Trail and a new casino are among the very few tourism developments of recent decades.

Ambitious tourism development plans by many different governmental bodies have floundered,
and institutional weaknesses and rivalry have played a key part (Ashley and Ntshona 2002).
Another case study on the northern edge of the Selous National Park in Tanzania highlights
another extreme, where the objective of promoting rural tourism falls between different
Institutional mandates. It is neither a priority for national tourism planners, nor the rural Council,
nor the conservationists running the community-based natural resource management programme
or the reserve to take control over promoting rural tourism. This partly explains why there is no
diversification into tourism enterprise in a location adjacent to a key tourism asset (Ashley,
Mdoe and Reynolds, 2002).

Dependency of rural tourism on national tourism developments

In many cases, rural tourism is developed or expanded as a strategy for attracting tourists away
from existing resorts (whether urban or rural) and dispersing them into new areas. In other cases
it may be developed to offer an entirely new package to a new market (e.g. to Dutch campers,
not Prague weekend-trippers, in the case of Czech Heritage Trails). But new tourism products are
dependent, to varying degrees, on the overall growth of tourism, and particularly the image of the
country as a whole, not just the rural area. This is evident in Uganda where perceptions of
insecurity in the country have hampered development of the international market for the heritage
trail sites.

Thus the implication is that successful development of rural tourism may be partly dependent on
success of the national tourism product, or at least hampered by constraints or downswings that
Affect tourism. The linkage between the new rural product and existing products, whether it is
an
Add-on for the same market or a new offering for a new market needs to be identified as part of
the development strategy.
Can rural tourism contribute to poverty reduction?

Both case studies describe small, recently implemented projects and as such cannot demonstrate
Clear successes in creating rural tourism and reducing rural poverty. For some indication, we
have to turn to comparable experience in countries with a longer investment. In Eastern Europe,
one of the most successful examples in developing rural tourism is Hungary. A combination of a
Successful national tourism industry, a serious policy commitment to rural tourism, an attractive
Rural setting, and many years experience of attracting Western tourists (in particular during the
‘closed-off’ communist days) have generated a well-established and important tourism sector.
This does not mean that all the other East European countries can automatically do the same,
particularly as they entered the post iron-curtain era without an existing western-oriented tourism
industry, but it does suggest that the product potential is there. In sub-Saharan Africa, one
comparative example to turn to is Namibia, where the work of the Namibian Community
Tourism Association (NACOBTA) initially served as a model for the establishment of Uganda’s
UCOTA. NACOBTA focuses exclusively on community tourism, much of which is in the north-
east and north-west communal (rural) areas.

While community tourism there is still developing (rapidly in some areas) from a tiny base, and
has its own share of problems, a review of NACOBTA in 2001 concluded that ‘most CBTEs are
making an income that has changed their communities from being poor or very poor to being
better off. This has contributed significantly towards the equitable distribution of resources
between urban and rural communities’. Clearly there are cases where tourism is successfully
developing and contributes to growth in rural areas. The extent to which the growth and
opportunities generated are pro-poor is a different issue.

As the relative importance of small-scale enterprises and cultural attractions is likely to enhance
opportunities for the poor, but Rogerson’s (2002) analysis of the Highlands Meander in South
Africa issues an important warning note: while the creation of the ‘Meander’ has been successful
in creating and marketing a product, the all-white ownership of, and participation in, the tourism
sector in the area has not been reversed. Thus from a pro-poor perspective, success needs to be
measured in terms of both creating tourism-led growth in rural areas, and in terms of the
distribution of opportunities among the poor and others.
Bibliography: -

www.google.com

www.ruralarea.com

www.heritageruralarea.com