Rwanda positioning tourism sector to fetch home more revenues
Posted on : Wednesday, 23rd September 2015
The government is pushing forth a vision to finance own budget by gradually reducing donor dependence. To do this, government has to up its game plan in harnessing local sources of revenue.
You only get quantity and quality milk from a cow that you nourish well. This means to make the most of the lucrative tourism industry, the government has to continue devising measures to improve the sector.
Tourism is the country’s top income earner bringing in $304.9 million (about Rwf223 billion) since 2014 and its potential continues to grow with more initiatives being put in place by the government through Rwanda Development Board (RDB).
After successfully hosting the eleventh edition of baby gorilla naming ceremony, Kwita-Izina, earlier this month, the tourism sector continues to put in place various initiatives to grow the industry.
They are all part of a wider programme that RDB has in place to grow the tourism sector. Among these are Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Events/Exhibitions (MICE) initiative.
It was created and launched last year as part of the government’s seven-year programme to continue building on the achievements in the areas of good governance, justice, economy and social wellbeing.
According to Faustin Karasira, the head of tourism department at RDB, the sector has the ability to contribute immensely towards the development of the economy.
“We were asked to diversify and add more business in the tourism sector by leveraging on Rwanda’s success story. We, therefore, established the Rwanda Convention Bureau, which monitors and handles all matter related to the MICE strategy,” he said.
According to the 2014 tourism report, Rwanda hosted 19,085 conference visitors compared to 15,441 in 2013. This corresponds to an increase of 24 per cent.
MICE fetched home revenues worth $29 million (about Rwf21 billion) in its first year of operation but this was still short of target.
“Our target was $32 million but we didn’t hit it. However, we are optimistic that we shall improve because our target is to make $207 million (about Rwf152 billion) by June 2018, but this is subject to completion of various projects that will add value to the tourism sector,” Karasira said.
He added that they were putting more efforts in the MICE strategy by bidding to host conferences and events.
MICE expects to reap from the Transform Africa 2015, Interpol International Conference and the World Economic Forum next year, among others.
However, Karasira noted that they can’t achieve the strategy without a vibrant private sector.
“Currently, we are in the final stages of training event organisers and we have established Rwanda Association of Professional Conference Organisers (RWAPCO) and an interim committee is already in place,” he said.
Karasira said the association of 20 companies will help to solve the problem of finding qualified conference organisers, which has been a challenge for companies that wanted to host conferences.
“We have encountered various challenges, among them readiness of the industry, linking professional conference organisers and clients and looking at companies’ logistics and ability to handle conferences. We learnt a lot from hosting the Africa Development Bank annual meeting. So, we are looking at various solutions to the challenges we faced in our first year,” he said.
