The fifth leg of the domestic tourism promotion campaign ‘Explore Uganda’ has taken to Busoga, officially flagged off by the State Minister for Tourism, Wildlife and Antiquities Hon. Martin Mugarra Bahinduka on Thursday.
Dubbed “Explore Busoga”, the 4-day tour is aimed at among others; highlighting the numerous tourist attractions and adventure activities in the region, encouraging local travel, reviving the region’s tourism cluster while also spotting areas of interest that can be developed into tourism products or added to itineraries to supplement existing packages.
For day one of the tour, travel enthusiasts were – apart from the joyful, energetic dances that welcomed them to the adventure capital – thrilled by the tours to Nile Breweries Ltd, one of the country’s major producers of beer and the excursion at the Nalubaale Power Station, formerly known as the Owen Falls Dam.
Infrastructure tourism offers tourists an opportunity to have first hand experiences inside facilities that are closed to the public.
At the Nile Breweries plant in Njeru next to Jinja, the group was taken through the beer brewing process, from where the raw materials (including barley, maize, cassava among others) are received, loaded for malting, milling, mashing, extract separation, boiling, cooling, fermentation, maturing and packaging.
According to Minister Mugarra, Nile Breweries is a huge contributor to infrastructure tourism, and is also partnering with the Ministry on this particular campaign.
Ashri Mori, the Plant Manager-Jinja Brewery said the plant welcomes a sizable number of tourists both foreign and domestic all year round.
“This being one of the first breweries in Uganda, it plays a very big role in driving the tourism industry. We are here for the beer and we will always be part of the tourism industry because our products are sold all over the country and can be accessed by all tourists,” Mori added.
The tourists were also treated to the breathtaking heights of the Source of the Nile Bridge and the technical sections of the Uganda Electricity Generation Company Limited (UEGCL) plant at Nalubaale.
Formerly known as the Owen Falls Dam and renamed Nalubaale by H.E Yoweri Museveni in 2001, it is the oldest hydropower plant in Uganda commissioned in 1954.
According to UEGCL, originally, Owen Falls dam was designed for ten turbines rated at 15 megawatts (20,000 hp) each (a total of 150 megawatts (200,000 hp). In the the 1990s, the station was refurbished to repair the accumulated wear from a decade of civil disorder.
During the repairs, the output power of the generators was increased, bringing the Nalubaale Power Complex’s generating capacity to 180 megawatts (240,000 hp).
Day 2 of the Campaign has activities including the Kagulu Rock hiking, CSR drive and the Jinja night life.
Day 3 of the Campaign is largely adventure activities from bungee jumping, quad biking to tubing the Nile.
Day 4 will have tourists visit the Kakira Sugar factory, the climax of the trip.