REVIEWING UGANDA’S TOURISM SECTOR FOR ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL UPGRADING
Abstract
In tourism the use of sector’s employment opportunities and contribution to gross domestic
product (GDP) as a measure of its performance may be deceptive as the sector is prone to
foreigners domination and has a lot of ‘leakages’. Global production network (GPN) analysis
is becoming popular analytical frameworks for understanding industries like tourism. In this
paper, we review literature on global production networks, with a focus on the tourism sector
in Uganda. The main objective of the study is to establish information availability and point
out existing information gaps in understanding Uganda’s participation in the tourism GPN with
respect to economic and social upgrading/downgrading. It was observed that the tourism
sector remains an important avenue for economic growth and poverty reduction, and has
experienced growth in investment along the value chain, attractiveness and operational
complexity. Information gaps were observed on levels of functional integration among tourism
actors, impacts of tourism on employment and poverty reduction among gender and social
classes and factors that will affect trajectory for social and economic upgrading/downgrading
for the tourism actors in Uganda.
Citation
RESEARCH SERIES No. 91Collections
- School of Economics [99]