PART 1: No mean feat selling tourism in East Africa
In 2001, with personal savings of $200, Amos Wekesa started a briefcase tour firm, Great Lakes Safaris, without a single vehicle. His first office was below a staircase in downtown Kampala. Today, Wekesa has become one of the most influential to-go tour operators in the country. PHOTO | COURTESY | GREAT LAKES SAFARIS
One of Uganda’s most celebrated tourism entrepreneurs and ambassadors, Amos Masaba Wekesa, attributes his success to a drive spurred by the abject poverty he was born into.
“I started out 18 years ago as a sweeper, then office messenger, became a tour guide and then started my own tour company with $200 and an office under a staircase. You must have something that drives you as a person in order to achieve the best of your life. I was driven by poverty,” Wekesa told The EastAfrican.
