Safari Gorilla News - Uganda Safaris & Tours Info Updates

 BY KIIZA CALAH 

East African Community (EAC) ministers in charge of immigration are yet to meet to consider a proposal for a common tourist visa-a proposal, which if adopted, would bring to the fore benefits of marketing East Africa as a single travel package.

Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda’s state-run tourism agencies already market East Africa at international fairs as a single destination but failure by immigration bosses to make progress on the adoption of the proposal, has failed an unprecedented move that would boost revenues and tourist numbers.
A Uganda immigration official told an East African consultative meeting on facilitation of air transport last week in Uganda’s eastern town of Jinja.  No progress has been made in Tanzania as the immigration bosses there are yet to meet to even consider the proposal.

The proposal was mooted by the Kenya Tourist Board (KTB) more than three years ago.
In Kenya,  the situation is the same as is the case in Tanzania, but there are plans to introduce visa stickers.

The EAC Council of Ministers, which is the designated decision-making authority on all matters that touch on the sovereignty, revenue, policy and immigration matters, is the organ that will ultimately adopt the joint visas for tourists.

A single tourist visa would allow tourists to travel through a series of endless borders to sample the unique attractions that East Africa has to offer.For Example toursit going for Uganda Tours, Kenya tour,  Tanzania Safaris and rwanda Tours would find it cheap and easy to buy our tour products.

The EAC Secretariat has listed the single tourist visa among its foremost future plans and had initially hoped that it would have been agreed upon by the five states, Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda and Tanzania by November 2006.

Tourists continue to demand to sample the entire array of tourist attractions spread across the region, from Mombasa’s breathtaking beaches, Tanzania’s Ngorogoro Crater, the chimpanzee parks in Tanzania, Uganda and Rwanda’s mountain gorillas and other wildlife safaris. While the technocrats are still considering the proposal, their reluctance to agree on a joint visa for tourists, has, however not crippled the joint promotional activity.

The strategy has been applied during international tourism exhibitions where tents of all the five member states have been placed close to each other. According to the plan, a tourist would apply for a visa in any one of the five states and would travel uninterupted to all the countries.

Tourist boards from Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania are the joint inventors of the plan, a crosscutting measure, which aims to standardise all tourism facilities in the region, including hotels and other tourism facilities.

Tanzania’s Tourist Board (TTB) favours a system where member countries market their tourist attractions independently with a joint banner bearing common features designed by the EAC Secretariat on the background of the booths. These initiatives are aimed at ensuring decisions made by the Council of Ministers on promotion and cooperation in tourism are implemented. Tanzania is Kenya’s most serious competitor as a destination for foreign tourists after the US followed by the UK and South Africa.

Uganda also ranks among the top 10 destinations in the world with a 6.2% preference level compared with the 21.7% who prefer to travel to  Tanzania is closer at 17.5%. These rankings are a powerful indicator that the East Africa region has potential to become one of the world’s biggest global  attractions as a single package rather than a disjointed bloc.Uganda Gorilla safaris are a key attraction for vistors to Uganda, while masai mara Safari are a key attarction for kenya safaris, while kilimanjaro tour is a key attraction for Tanzania

 Compiled by

Kiiza Calah

 It has been realised that Female chimpanzees are hungry for sex with as many males as possible, and keep their mouths shut about it to boost their chances of luring the top chimps, a British university said yesterday.

Scientists at the University of St. Andrews studied the copulation calls — sounds they sometimes make during mating — of female chimpanzees in Uganda

like those at Ngamba Island, Kibale forest national park, Kaniyo Pabidi and Queen Elizabeth  to find out more about what they mean.

The Scottish institution’s team concluded that female chimps sometimes keep quiet during sex so their female rivals do not find out what they have been up to.

Evolutionary psychologists Simon Townsend and Klaus Zuberbuhler studied chimp behaviour in Uganda’s Budongo Forest over 16 months.

The team established that female chimpanzees hid their sexual activity when high-ranking females were nearby, perhaps in a bid to reduce competition for good quality males. This could prevent higher-ranking female chimpanzees from turning on them.

They also found the females produced more copulation calls when high-ranking males were around to attract them to have sex. The scientists believe that having sex with several males causes confusion among the male chimpanzees as to which one sired the offspring. The males are therefore less likely to kill any babies that might be theirs.

The study found no evidence that males were competing to have sex with females after they produced copulation calls, and no link between a female’s fertility and her use of the calls.

“Chimpanzee females adjusted their calling behaviour in flexible ways, potentially to avoid aggression from other females and possibly to secure future benefits from the socially important males,” the study said.

“Competition between females can be dangerously high in wild chimpanzees. These females use their copulation calls in highly tactical ways to minimise the risks associated with such competition.”

By,

Kiiza Calah (safari news reporter)

katara lodge i s located just out side eastern side of the Queen Elizabeth national park, set on the edge of the hills overlooking the open savanna. Katara lodge accommodates 10 guests in 5 spacious thatched cottages with rich wooden floors and classic interiors. Each cottage commands breathtaking views of the park from the room, en-suit bathroom window and private balcony.

Each cottage has a queen sized starbed, which during thedry seaskon can be rolled out onto the private veranda sko tha guests can sleep directly under the starlit African Sky.

The main bar and dining area is a large thatched structure, completely open to the western side so that guests can enjoy the view of plains of Queen Elizabeth national park , with Rwenzori mountains providing a stunning backdrop on a clear day.

Activities for guest at in Queen Elizabeth National park include game drives through the park, launch trip on kazinga channel, chimp trekking in Kyambura Gorge, Maramagambo forest walk.