Much has been said in the past two weeks following the announcement of Rwanda’s three-year deal with Arsenal FC. Whereas many touted this as a masterstroke on the part of Rwanda, especially in the country’s continued quest to promote tourism, a few criticised the deal, saying that, as a poor country, Rwanda was not probably best placed to partner with one of the most popular football clubs in the world.

The New Times’ Collins Mwai caught up with Rwanda Development Board Chief Executive, Clare Akamanzi, who set the record straight on the deal and other aspects in the tourism sector, privatisation of government assets, AGOA stalemate, among others.

Excerpts:

To start with, why has your office decided to rebrand the tourism promotion campaign from ‘Remarkable Rwanda’ to ‘Visit Rwanda’?

As a reflection of the transformation of the tourism sector in Rwanda has undertaken and also with the need to increase tourism receipts to $800m, there was need to grow into a new phase.

There is nothing contradictory between Remarkable Rwanda and Visit Rwanda, we are at a stage in our tourism journey where we wanted to have a call to action and we wanted people to see our brand more actionable.

We are not just saying that Rwanda is remarkable, we are asking tourists to come visit.

Rwanda recently signed a three-year marketing deal with Arsenal FC. How did this come about? Who approached who and what was the financial considerations and assumptions?

As a tourism agency, we are approached with so many ideas from across the world. We get ideas from the US, China and other markets. Whenever we get such requests, we analyse to see which one matches the needs that we have and which one is going to be available for both parties.

We were approached by Arsenal to partner with them. They presented the idea and we thought it was brilliant and went for it.

The reason we thought it was a good idea is that, even people who do not know much about football, know Arsenal. And, those who do not know much also know quite a bit of football players from the team.

The team is popular across the world, beyond Europe, it’s popular in Asia and Africa among other markets.

We looked at the fact that the UK is also our second source of tourism after the US, so building on the existing interest it made a lot of sense. We want to increase tourism in markets like China in  which the new partnership will play a critical role, as well as the rest of Africa.

What else does Rwanda get out of it beyond the sleeve visibility?

When it comes to numbers about 35 million people see the team’s jersey every day; and when they are playing, 100 million people get to see the jersey. Just exposing ‘Visit Rwanda’ to an audience of such magnitude will play a large role towards enabling us  to reach our targets.

The international market needs to be aware of the Rwandan tourism potential.

It’s also beyond the sleeve display, we are also going to have advertising on the LED screens during games, we are also going to be advertising through National Geographic, the team is also going to be coming to Rwanda to work with our football (stakeholders) as well as promote tourism which will also have further coverage.

When you see the reaction that people have, there was passion and debate which is in most times in support and creating further interest in the country.

Exactly because we are aid dependent, it is more reason to have agreements such as the most recent one with Arsenal. If we keep it business as usual, we are less likely to improve.

It takes bold decisions to be able to change the status quo. If you look at the track record of our country, the government and President Kagame, it’s been unconventional but driven towards the goals.

To break from that requires unconventional measures.

Aid is going towards the most vulnerable part of our needs, health, education as well as supporting agriculture, because those are the ones development partners have agreed on.

Tourism can sustain its marketing on its own as it generates revenue. It is our largest foreign exchange earner and proceeds can be used to fund such initiatives.

For instance, we sell, on average, 96 gorilla permits a day with each costing $1500. The interest is very good, we can afford to pay for such an expense and it’s good that it will help us reduce dependence on aid.

Tourism has other benefits, if the sector grows, other sectors grow with it too including job creation capacity for both tourism operators and their suppliers.

Because of the need to wean off aid and to grow our economy exponentially, it’s the reason why this is being done.

With recent cases of tourists’ incidences in the region such as such kidnapping in DR Congo, what is Rwanda’s preparedness to guarantee safety and security of tourists given the proximity to the incidences?

Safety and security is the hallmark of the tourist experience in Rwanda. Any tourist in Rwanda can be guaranteed, without a shadow of doubt, that they will be safe.

The Rwandan government has invested in making sure that everyone is safe as well as their property. That is the reason Rwanda is ranked the 9th safest country in the world.

It’s not by accident, neither is it easy. The investment in security is embedded in societies and communities as well as everything that we do, including park management.

There is a very strong security protocol that surrounds our parks to make sure that there cannot be any infiltration. In the last 20 years, we have not had an incident in our parks because we have invested in that.

Rwanda is rated as the 5th safest place for a girl to walk at night globally, because we take our security very seriously.

Some countries might have security challenges but I can assure tourists that Rwandan is safe. If people like Ellen De Generes and Portia could come to Rwanda and visit smoothly, it’s because they have done their homework and know that the country is very safe.

Recent statistics on gorilla population show significant growth but the park size remains the same. There were plans for further expansion of Volcanoes National Park, the habitat of the mountain gorillas. What’s the progress on this?

Expansion of the park is not in isolation; it’s part of a bigger strategy. The bigger strategy is Vision 2050, Vision 2035, and the 7 year transformation plan. We have identified tourism as very important and are not only investing in expansion of the park and advertising, we are investing in every aspect of tourism.

We are increasing national accessibility by increasing the destinations served by the national carrier, RwandAir, we reinstated the ‘Big Five’ in Akagera National Park, and the stakeholders are growing.

That is part of the bigger strategy. We have realised that conservation has been a key component of growth of the sector in Rwanda, if we do not conserve our eco-system and habitat, we lose the sustainability.

That is why when we saw that the gorilla population is increasing by about 25 per cent, we have to find them extra-space to ensure sustainability and avoid human-wildlife conflict, which is very dangerous.

We have identified a parcel to expand the park too, it’s about 3,000 hectares, we are doing studies and valuation and everything to ensure that we do it well and ensure that those who are expropriated are better off than they were.

When tourism grows, the benefit to the surrounding community ought to grow too.

About one year into the revised gorilla permit prices, what trends is your office picking up in regards to demand?

If you look at the gorilla permits that we sold in 2016 and 2017, we saw a slight improvement in 2017. However, that was not enough time to monitor the impact of the new permits as we had allowed those who had already booked to use the old prices and many permits had already been sold for 2017.

2018 is what will show us the impact on the new prices. But what we have seen so far is that, in the summer, we have had a lot of bookings with some of them spilling over into 2019.

What we have seen is that budget travelers around December and during winter were slightly affected. However, from January, the bookings went back up. Rwanda is increasingly becoming a high-end destination.

Singita Lodge were giving us a brief whereby they  are still constructing a high-end lodge, which they plan on opening in August 2019, but they have already sold out for the period between August to December that year.

They have sold out more than 220 nights which shows you the potential of high-end tourism.

To see the impact of the new prices, we will have to study the 2018 trends.

Aside from tourism, what is the latest in regards to privatisation of government’s assets and response to the Auditor General’s remarks on losing value in the process?

 Privatisation has come a long way. We started privatisation in 1998 at a time when the confidence in Rwanda’s economy was not what it is today, it was lower. When we were trying to sell assets to private sector then, it took a lot of convincing.

That has since changed, today if we put up a firm for privatisation, there is a lot of interest unless it’s a business that is not viable. For most of the businesses, there is a lot of interest.

The challenges have reduced significantly, we put in systems of privatisation, we advertise, we have a privatisation policy; we have a Public Private Partnership Unit that handles the privatisation process.

Together with a team of lawyers, we are able to go through the numbers when an investor offers us a price as well as a breakdown of the financial analysis. This has improved towards how we get value for money.

That is going to improve as we go along the way. It has come a long way because, previously, the capacity was low and the private sector was also growing.

Considering the recent notice on the termination of the AGOA trade window, there have been fears among a section of traders about losing the market. What are the government’s projections in regards to recovery of trade in the American market as well as new alternatives for Rwandan exporters?

What the US wants to phase out from the AGOA benefits is just apparel sector. It is not everything that goes through AGOA. We have been engaging the US government but I think what is clear is that decision to raise tariffs, was not only Rwanda’s decision. All the countries of EAC decided to do this and Rwanda is sticking by that decision.

 There is no specific reason to leave a decision that was agreed upon by countries in the region. This is an EAC decision and we intend to continue implementing what we agreed.

That said, there might be consequences for deciding to keep our word. The US has decided that they might phase out duty-free access for apparels to the American market.

Our plan as government is to work with companies that will be affected. They are very few. The main one is C&H but we have other smaller ones too.

Our intention is to work with them to find alternative markets.  We will find duty free opportunities in the European Union as well as Asia and Africa where we can find markets.

In the meantime, those who are going to be affected by AGOA suspension, government is going to work with them to allow them to finish the orders that they were working on in the  US for the next one year and we will pay the taxes for them.

We would not like their orders to be affected as they seek alternative markets.  We are putting in place an adjustment facility that will allow us to have a fund to pay their taxes that will be imposed.

That way, they will still serve their clients and have one year to plan a new markets.

Given the demand by some nations of Rwanda’s expertise in sectors of public governance (for instance, Zimbabwe) are there plans to have a technical capacity exporting mechanism?

Rwanda believes in peer-to-peer learning, South-to-South cooperation. We are very happy to share experiences with our African sisters and brothers and beyond. We have also gone for learning trips to other countries. Rwanda is very open to that.

Recently we decided to streamline how we do that, we have been receiving a lot of interest from other countries who want to see what we are doing.

We decided (to create) the Rwanda Cooperation Initiative that will organise how we are able to exchange our ideas and experiences with other countries who are interested.

Whoever wants to share our experiences will be received but it will be through the Rwanda Cooperation Initiative, so that we have it as streamlined, institutionalized and to have a long term relationship.

editorial@newtimes.co.rw