Rwanda is work its magic to be Africa’s best MICE destination

Ambassador Yamina Kayitani who is the leader of the department for Tourism and Conservation at the Rwanda Development Board formally presented the new tourism strategy that was being worked on in the past months.  He said their new focus will towards attracting MICE business as the national convention centre is about to be opened late this or early next year.

He also said that the 2013 data on tourism earnings and arrivals with visitor numbers is once again increasing by 6% from 1.076.000 in 2012 to 1.137.000 last year.  The revenues attributed to tourism also increased from 281.8 million US Dollars in 2012 to 293.6 million US Dollars and that is about 4% increase on a year by year comparison and this trend maintained tourism sector position as the leading foreign exchange earner and lead sector of the Rwandan economy.

Now, there is this next big annual event that is coming up and that will be the 10th anniversary of Kwita Izina which is the gorilla naming ceremony that has over the past decade grown into a weeklong festival intended to celebrate conservation. This year’s will be on the 21st of June in Kinigi outside the Volcanoes National Park headquarters near Musanze.

The ambassador also announced the formation of a new Rwanda Convention Bureau which will be responsible for selling the new facilities in the region, the continent of Africa and further abroad to bring regular large scale meetings to Kigali. There are about two 5 star hotels that  are under construction at the moment in Kigali and these are the new Marriott Kigali Hotel and the hotel adjoining the new convention centre under the Radisson Blue management. The Convention Bureau will make its first international appearance at next week’s IMEX Show in Frankfurt / Germany where RDB will be exhibiting the new upcoming facilities for the first time to the whole world.

There are currently 3.500 delegates flocking to Rwanda for the Annual General Meeting of the African Development Bank and the event has seen all  hotels and guesthouses sold out with some visitors having to resort to home stays or the use of private accommodation provided by residents of Kigali. This is great as it is a great source of revenue both to the government and the locals themselves.  

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