Profile

Celestine is currently a Senior Lecturer and Head of Tourism Department at Makerere University Business School. His research interests include sustainable tourism, tourism entrepreneurship, community tourism, and tourism planning.

He supervises research students at Undergraduate, masters and PhD levels. He is a reviewer for some of the most prestigious tourism journals in the world.Celestine serves as an advisor to the Government of Uganda, several international organisations and the tourism private sector on tourism development, enterprise development and livelihoods improvement. He has played a key role in formulating Uganda’s national tourism development plans, national tourism marketing strategies, tourism development master plans, and strategic plans for government and private sector agencies in the east and west African countries. He possesses vast experience in conducting baseline surveys and development studies that focus on tourism and livelihoods improvement. He has helped to conduct evaluations of development projects worth more than US$3billion, mostly working with the poorest of poor and refugees.

Celestine founded Sights and Sounds of Africa Safaris, a tour company that promotes inclusive tourism. One of the company’s projects is Entanda Community Tourism Initiative. Over the past ten years, the initiative has supported restoration of culture, the community’s natural environment and has had a significant improvement in household welfare. The initiative has inspired emergency of 3 related initiatives. It has also inspired development of a bottom-up finance mobilisation application for the active poor, currently serving about 1500 Ugandans.