The Contribution of the Media in the Development of Tourism Industry in Uganda Case Study· Source of the Nile

ABSTRACT The Research was conducted under the title (The Contribution of the Media towards the Development of Tourism Industry in Uganda). Case Study Source of the Nile Jinja. The aim of the study was to investigate the role played by the Media towards the development of Tourism Industry ofUganda. The research questions that thought to answer the problem were 1. Does Mass Media contribute to the development of Tourism Industry in Uganda? 2. Will Uganda continue to compete with other countries as fur Tourism is concerned? 3. What factors have contributed to the development of the Source of the Nile The subjects that the researcher sampled were 110, 17 were from the management and the employee of the source of the Nile,27 were from the selected business personnel and 66 respondents were the tourists at the source of the Nile. It was hypothesized that the Media does not significantly contribute to the development of tourism industry in Uganda. The researcher used different methods of data collection like; the research questionnaire, observation, documentary analyisis and interviews. Data was analysed using table, percentages , graphs and chi-square test. The results obtained hypothised that the Media has significantly contributes to the development of tourism industry in Uganda. The results showed the media contribution to the source of the Nile and tourism industry as a whole. The researcher come up with the following finds: Media has significantly contributed the development of tourism through publicity, advertisement and sensitization of both local and foreign tourist. The researcher also come up with the following conclusion, that mass medium has done a lot toward the development of tourism industry. This is evident by increase in the number of tourist which is as a result of publicity ie in 1998/99 there was 38% increment and in 1999/2000 there was 24.7% increment at the source of the Nile. The researcher also made the following recommendations: The Government should sensitize people about the role played the media in the development of tourism industry. Jinja municipal council should look for interested investors to construct an international hotel at the source of the Nile. The Government should also sensitize people about the importance of tourism industry to increase the number of local people going to tour.