Ministry of Tourism in Uganda starts hotel grading

HOTEL GRADING UNDERWAY IN UGANDA

(Posted 25th June 2014)

Almost by stealth did the long awaited hotel grading exercise in Uganda go underway, using the three year old East African regulations on grading and classifying hotels and other accommodation establishments.

Several teams of ‘graders’ have already gone through some 30 hotels in and around Kampala before extending the exercise to upcountry locations.

While not always received well by poorly informed hotel owners or managers, who perhaps have not understood that their participation, willing or unwilling is mandatory, most visits have yielded good results as it was learned, even considering the challenges the teams have to complete a full review especially of larger hotels, given the extensive catalogue of criteria, within the allocated timeframe.

Current Hotel Owner’s Association President Mrs. Susan Muhwezi recently went on record urging fellow hotel owners to fully cooperate with the grading so that at last Ugandan hotels can be brought in line with hotels across the East African region, where, depending on country, the exercise is more or less advanced except for Kenya where it is yet to start due to a lack of funds having been allocated.