Abstract:
The aimed at assessing the economic value of ecotourism at Kapkwai exploration centre in Kapchorwa district. The specific objectives were to: describe the nature of ecotourists who visit Kapkwai exploration centre, estimate the number of ecotourists who visit the site and compute the costs that ecotourists incur to visit Kapkwai exploration centre. This involved use of questionnaires covering 36 respondents. The data were managed and processed using SPSS and MS. Excel software. Data analysis involved percentages, frequencies and cross tabulations. The study findings indicate that in the last one year, Kapkwai exploration centre received 3,012 visitors. Most of the visitors were local ecotourists (66.7%) while international constituted (33.3%). The average round trip for the tourists was 2667.5 Kilometres and the average travel cost per person was Uganda shillings 1,057,014. The total economic value of the site was Uganda shillings 3,183,725,833.
