Excellent tourism for so much natural beauty

UHTTI

Programme Coach
Eric Decroix
Company partners
Hotelschool Ter Duinen Image result for icon link
Adfundum Image result for icon link

With a beautiful location along the banks of the Nile in Jinja, the Uganda Tourism and Training Institute (UHTTI) is the leading institution for tourism in Uganda. Over the past 25 years, more than 7,000 students have graduated from the renowned academy as tourism professionals.  

Every year, the tourism sector in Uganda increases in importance. In a country that is struggling with enormous youth unemployment, tourism can provide sustainable work opportunities. The institution cleverly plays on this. It prides itself on supplying highly qualified and competent workerswith excellent potential, to the national and international tourism market.  

No better experience than practice

Just as there are with many hotel schools in Belgium todaythere is also a hotel linked to the UHTTI. It allows students to transform their theoretical knowledge into practical experience. The hotel is also recognised as a historic monumentIt is run and managed entirely by students from the academy.  

A visionary pioneer with the right marketing

2019 is the year of large investments for the academy. Among others, the World Bank is investing in the highly promising tourism academy. The most important pillars of the expansion plan are:  

  • a new school for 600 students;  
  • a three-star hotel with the capacity for a hundred rooms;  
  • infrastructure for external events, catering to more than 700 guests.  

The planned investments need to transform the school and the hotel into a modern and visionary pioneer within the tourism sector. The success of such ambitious plans will of course be dependent on a powerful and clever marketing plan. And that’s where Exchange comes into the picture.  

 

Exchange vzw has already been assisting the academy for a number of years. In 2016the first growth programme for the hotel school was unveiled. A new strategy for Exchange was also paired with a new strategy for the academy and a new name. In the initial phase of the growth programme, the focus lay on the workings of the school and the skills of the employees. Experts from the renowned Hotelschool Ter Duinen in Koksijde went to Uganda to share their expertise. In 2018, the focus was placed mainly on marketing and communication. The marketing company AdFundum based in Roeselare is committed to sending UHTTI to a more professional marketing approach. This should sharpen the image of the hotel school and the associated hotel.

Raising awareness is the key to sustainable waste management

Witzenberg Municipality (Ceres)

 

 

Programme Coach
Bert Bortier
Expert Team
Els Compernolle
Myriam De Munter
Anne Vandeputte
Partners
Essen Image result for icon link
GreenCape Image result for icon link

Exchange did not only visit Bergrivier, we also met with the Witzenberg Municipality to establish a partnership focused on waste management, waste reduction, composting and recycling.  

The situation in Witzenberg is quite different to the one in Bergrivier. There are still public garbage dumps in use. Recycling and waste separation at the source are still not very well-established behaviours. In Witzenberg, there is still a lot to be done.  

In October 2018, GreenCape performed a needs analysis in Witzenberg. This allowed Exchange to know what expertise and support would be required of us. Time to get to work!  

A third partner in this growth programme is the municipality of Essen. Essen is the twin city to Witzenberg as established in the VVSG twin cities agreement. They have been working together with the South African municipality on waste processing since 2002.  

Exchange will continue to build on the existing collaborations. As well as this, we will be facilitating the expertise exchange. Raising awareness, recycling, composting and collaborating with local recycling companies will be the focus points of the programme in Witzenberg.