Category: News

The Rwanda Development Board’s Tourism and Conservation Department will grade at least 30 more hotels this year, following the start of the exercise last year. Using the East African Community’s guidelines for grading and classification of hotels and other hospitality businesses, RDB is reportedly committed to play their part in ensuring that standards and quality of tourism establishments in Rwanda are uplifted to match if not exceed those of their neighbors in the East African community.

Presently only the Kigali Serena Hotel and the Nyungwe Forest Lodge by DubaiWorld hold the coveted 5-star ranking, while a number of other Kigali hotels were graded as 4-star properties, as was the Lake Kivu Serena. A number of other establishments have requested to be put on the list for upcoming inspections to ensure they can also publicly announce and display their star rating once the exercise is complete.

Those already graded will, however, also undergo a fresh audit to ensure that standards established at first inspection will have been maintained to ensure continued high ranking, also giving others the opportunity to attain a further star, should improvement made over the past two years warrant such a decision.

“When you were here last time we discussed the very issue of standards. Rwanda is a niche destination, still largely focused on gorilla trekking. The new products launched over the past two or three years, however, have attracted a lot of attention. Hiking is now a regular activity in Nyungwe Forest, Gishwati Forest, and along the Congo-Nile Trail. Birding has become an important additional niche.

“It is now important to raise our standards so when visitors come to Rwanda as an extension of their Kenya or Tanzania holiday they get the best possible quality, in guides, in infrastructure, and, of course, in hospitality. There is always room to improve, but we have made it our mission to accomplish certain goals sooner rather than later. When the new Marriott will open, it will compete at level terms with the Serena, and that is good for the country as it offers another 5-star choice.

“Our MICE business is growing strongly, too, and that segment of the market in particular is really very much interested in quality facilities. Rwanda is going places,” said a source in Kigali working at a hotel but, for not being the official company spokesperson had to opt for an off-the-record comment.

MTN Group Ltd. (MTN)’s Rwandan unit lost market share in the fourth quarter to its main competitor, Tigo Rwanda, the Rwanda Utilities Regulatory Agency (RURA) said. MTN Rwanda’s share stood at 65 percent compared with 72 percent a year earlier, while Tigo’s grew to 35 percent from 19 percent, the Kigali-based regulator said in a report yesterday. MTN had 2.89 million subscribers in the East African country as of December, while Tigo had 1.55 million, it said.

“Our affordable tariff structure has clearly played a major part in this achievement,” Tigo Chief Executive Officer Diego Camberos said in a phone interview yesterday. MTN Rwanda Chief Marketing Officer Yvonne Makolo didn’t respond to an e-mailed request for comment.

Rwanda’s mobile-phone penetration rate may increase to 60 percent this year after Bharti Airtel Ltd. (BHARTI) begins operating in the East African country, the regulator said in January. The proportion of the Rwandan population with a mobile phone rose to 41.6 percent in December from 41.3 percent in November.

MTN Rwanda began operations in 1998, while Tigo, which is owned by Luxembourg-based Millicom International Cellular SA (MICC), obtained its license in 2008.

A multimedia academy, The Africa Digital Multimedia Academy the first in Africa, will commence lectures next week in Kigali.

This was revealed yesterday, by the Director General of WDA, Jerome Gasana, during a press conference held at the academy premises in Nyarugenge District, Kigali city.

He said WDA, in collaboration with Pixel Corps has already recruited 20 students for the first intake. Gasana noted that those who were recruited are already engaged in the multimedia industry.

“Over 300 people applied for this training,” Gasana said.

He added that after three months, the academy will recruit another batch of students. Initially the school was supposed to have started operating before the end of February, but according to Gasana, it was delayed because they were still procuring equipment for the academy.

He noted that the school aims to equip Rwandans with multimedia skills, therefore unlocking the entire industry and encouraging innovation and creativity.

The Government, through the WDA, has so far spent Rwf 100 million on the Academy. Various international companies have shown interest in providing more financial support to the school.

Speaking to The New Times, Christopher Marler, the Program Manager at the Academy, the Pixel Corps are working with WDA to develop a curriculum and train instructors for the school.

“The teaching equipment, which we have brought here, is as good as those used in the film production and Photoshop academies in the USA. In addition, part of our responsibility is also to connect the academy to other academies in the same field”.

Rwanda is hoping to push tourism beyond its most famous visitor attraction – its mountain gorillas.

Rica Rwigamba, the Rwanda Development Board’s head of tourism and conservation, said that gorilla-tourism is at around 90% of capacity, but that the country has a lot of other products and experiences to offer.

“Yes, come for the gorillas, but what else will you do after that? We have so much more than mountain gorillas,” she said.

There are already signs of visitors staying longer in the country, she said, with tour operators bringing in seven or 10-day packages to the country instead of three or five-day “add-ons”.

New areas of the country are to be promoted to tourists, crucially Nyungwe national park in south-east Rwanda.

The Mantis Group, which owns several luxury properties and game reserves around the world, opened Nyungwe Forest Lodge in the park in March of this year.

Rwigamba confirmed that the Marriott, Hilton and Radisson groups are also in discussions about moving into Rwanda for the first time.

While nature remains a key attraction, Rwanda is looking to promote its cultural heritage more heavily to tourists.

“We’d like to show people not just the genocide, but Rwanda’s history before colonialisation, and before the genocide,” she explained.

KLM began flying from Amsterdam to Rwanda via Nairobi on November 1, which Rwigamba said was giving much needed competition to Brussels Airlines.

OURBIODIVERSITY, OUR HERITAGE

This year, Rwanda celebrates World Tourism Day under the theme “Tourism and Biodiversity” with the launch of the Canopy Walk at Nyungwe National Park. Set 50 meters above ground, it is a thrill-a-minute walkway into the treetops that gives visitors a new, exciting way to experience the park. With this launch, RDB re-states its commitment to product diversification and to enhancing tourists’ experiences while conserving the Park’s rich biodiversity.

LINKINGTOURISM WITH CONSERVATION!

Come and join us on 15th October 2010 in Nyungwe National Park.

For more information, contact:

Claudine Rubagumya

RDB / Tourism and Conservation

Tel: +250 0788891444

email: claudine.rubagumya@rdb.rw

Photo: igihe.com

A new craft and cultural village was launched last weekend next to Kigali’s Amahoro national stadium by the country’s Prime Minister Bernard Makuza. ‘Rwanda Village’ will also go on display during the FIFA World Cup in a few weeks time in South Africa, where it will showcase Ugandan products, art, culture and promote tourism to the ‘land of the thousand hills’. Traditional dancers will also be on site to perform and induce spectators to visit Rwanda in person to see more of the same.

Rwanda has been making a concerted effort, from the highest offices of government to grass root levels, to promote the country abroad and showcase it at every possible opportunity, and was successful in raising the country’s profile abroad and bringing in record numbers of visitors.

Ahead of the delivery, expected by the middle of the year, of their own B737-800, has RwandAir now signed a temporary dry lease agreement with a South African aviation firm, to use the aircraft for the period of the FIFA World Cup, when traffic is expected to peak between Kigali and Johannesburg. The national airline of Rwanda has already launched affordable packages to travel to South Africa, available from across their Eastern African network, and the use of a larger aircraft &endash; the airline presently operates two CRJ200 jets &endash; will be assisting them to uplift the projected passenger numbers during the run up to and the duration of the world’s biggest sporting event besides the Olympics.

Alongside the delivery of the B737-800 will then also a wide bodied aircraft join their fleet, likely to be a B767 which will be deployed on flight to new medium and long haul destinations, adding further scope to the operation of RwandAir and making the airline a more attractive proposition for the planned privatisation.

Information was just received from Kigali, in fact by none other than the Deputy CEO of the Rwanda Development Board for Tourism & Conservation, and prior to that Director General of ORTPN, the then Office for Tourism and National Parks, that after 7 years at the helm of the organisation and the public figure head for the revival and renewal of tourism to the ‘Land of the Thousand Hills‘, Rosette is stepping down from her position. She is leaving behind a cabinet full of trophies and prizes awarded to Rwanda Tourism during her reign at the helm and the latest global recognition came only a few days ago when the ITB management awarded for the fourth time running the ‘best African exhibitor’ award to Rwanda again.

Rosette, well known to this correspondent from her years in Kampala before she moved back to Rwanda, will be joining the private sector in April this year after a short break, undoubtedly much deserved to recharge her batteries, having ‘run’ nonstop in her previous capacities.

Rosette was confident in her message to this correspondent that passing on the baton to a soon to be announced new ‘public face’ of Rwanda’s tourism sector will be easy, having achieved in recent years a re-orientation of the tourism sector, created a new tourism policy, a new tourism law and formulated a 10 year strategic master plan for future developments and product diversification of the sector.

Rosette will be missed by the many many people around the world she interacted with over the past 7 years but as she will remain in the tourism sector she will undoubtedly come across many of those sooner rather than later again, albeit in a different capacity. Thank you Rosette for your proactive engagement with this correspondent over the years and for the forthright interaction on many issues of mutual interest and concern. All the best in your new ventures!

‘The land of a thousand hills’ as Rwanda is fondly known amongst her friends in the world, has done it again. For the fourth time running they have bagged the ‘best African Exhibitor’ award at the world’s biggest tourism trade show in Berlin last week, beating such competitors as South Africa, Egypt; both powerhouses in tourism; but also her East African neighbors Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania to the finishing line. The achievement it remarkable but it also speaks for the constant commitment to promoting tourism, not just at ITB, WTM and other tourism trade shows, but right across the year through an interactive and proactive approach to the media, the tourism trade and when welcoming visitors to the country.

Rwanda has been diversifying the available tourism products, adding new attractions and opening up new areas like the Nyungwe national park in the recent past, and most important does not require paid for Visa from a large number of nationalities arriving in the country. The combination of ‘switched on’ staff at the Rwanda Development Board; Tourism & Conservation with a keen private sector has hence made once again the difference, and the country was well recognized and rewarded once more, well deserved and congratulations from the heart!

(members of the Rwanda delegation to this year’s ITB, proudly displaying the award again)