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Several studies found larger benefits for communities when local stakeholders could participate in the tourism value chain by 'linking' their labour, products and services to the sector. However, the establishment of local linkages is difficult because of the complexity of the tourism system that consists of multi-sectoral and multi-scalar relationships. Moreover, in developing countries, empowered stakeholders tend to organise the tourism value chain vertically in which tourists are led in a spatially and socially confined trajectory in the destination, the so-called tourist bubble. This paper analyses the effect of governance in the tourism value chain on the establishment of local linkages to reshape the social and spatial boundaries of the tourist bubble in Uganda. Specifically, the possibilities of cultural tourism are explored as one particular way to reshape the bubble, that is centred on nature-based and ecotourism focuses. Results show that cultural activities can reshape the social boundaries of the bubble, while the catalyst role of cultural tourism developments is less successful in reshaping the spatial bubble boundaries. The national scale is pivotal to ensure that (1) local stakeholders are empowered to overcome existing barriers to enter and (2) international stakeholders are given incentives to reshape the bubble.

This study focuses on the concept of business enterprise success and the role of personality traits towards success of women entrepreneurs in business. We show that women entrepreneurs have capacity to start and sustain business enterprises as more than 80% of them were able keep their enterprises up and running for more than 10 years. We also find that women are capable of increasing the capital stock in their enterprises by big proportions even if their enterprises remain micro. We find that even small enterprises can be successful and note that women define success both in terms of economic and non-economic measures, in almost equal proportions. We find that conscientiousness (reliability, hard work and perseverance) and extraversion (being talkative, outgoing and social) are very strongly associated with success in business. These traits are learnable and appear the most significant to women success in business than other traits.

In the ongoing debate on the connection between tourism and poverty alleviation, tourism is often presented as a tool for poverty alleviation and the improvement of socio-economic conditions of rural communities in developing countries. Findings of prior research suggest that nature-based tourism has a positive impact; however, existing models tend to understate the spatial differentiation of impacts in different contexts. Little is known about the spatial range and scale of the benefits from tourism development at a certain location. Previous studies have shown that employment in accommodation facilities is responsible for the largest share of pro-poor impact in Ugandan tourism. This paper focuses on the spatial dimension of the impact of employment in the tourism accommodation sector on the local livelihoods, with nature-based tourism around Kibale National Park (KNP) in western Uganda as a case study. Semi-structured interviews with employees were undertaken to delineate the geographical sphere of influence (SoI) of tourism employment in the accommodation sector. Results show that tourism accommodations recruit from a small geographical sphere of influence (5-10 km) in rural settings, while in urbanized settings the sphere of influence is larger (30-40 km). Understanding spatial differences of the distribution of tourism benefits in developing countries can lead to better informed policies on poverty alleviation. Policies to promote tourism as a poverty alleviation strategy have shown some successes, but there is a danger that the spatial scale of the impact is smaller than anticipated. Furthermore, for more than 80% of households, tourism is the principal source of income. In addition, tourism employment can provide initial capital for supplementary activities, which gain in importance to the extent that their profits surpass the income from tourism employment. Tourism employment does not represent a final perspective but a stage for gathering resources and skills.

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