Rwanda is set to generate up to $360 million (approx. Rwf372 billion) revenue from the tourism industry in 2022, according to Ariella Kageruka, Head of the Tourism and Conservation Department at the Rwanda Development Board.

The recovery rate for the tourism sector which was badly hit by the Covid-19 pandemic stands at 80 per cent with revenue amounting to $168 million, from January to June this year, she noted, indicating that the trend inspires confidence to achieve the forecast.

"When you look at the next six months, with the [positive] trend we have, we will definitely have between $350 million and $360 million in revenue,” Kageruka told Doing Business.

In 2021, total tourism revenues were $164 million, a 25 per cent increase from $131 million in 2020. The country welcomed more than 512,000 international visitors in 2021.

In May, GlobalData, a data and analytics company, indicated that international departures are expected to improve to 82 per cent in 2023 and 97 per cent in 2024, before making a full recovery by 2025 at 101 per cent of 2019 levels with a projected 1.5 billion international departures.

In November 2021, the Rwanda Chamber of Tourism pledged to help small businesses in the tourism sector access the Economic Recovery Fund (ERF) as they recovered from effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. The fund was established in June 2020, with an initial Rwf100 billion, to accelerate the recovery of Covid-19 hit businesses. In May 2022, government launched the second phase of the fund with $250 million to further support economic recovery through increased access to finance for businesses affected by the pandemic.

Experts in the tourism and hospitality sectors say that resumption to normalcy for the sector is likely to have a different outlook and performance drivers with a new set of factors driving performance.

Under the National Strategy of Transformation (NST1), the government’s seven-year (2017–2024) strategy that sets out plans for achieving its larger picture vision for economic development, Rwanda targets to double tourism income from $400 million in 2017 to $800 million by 2024.

According to Kageruka, Rwanda hit the $500 million mark by 2019 which indicated "the right course” but with Covid-19, "it is hard to tell.”

However, she said, the target remains the same and key contributing factors to achieve it include tourism in national parks and meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions (MICE).

In the last fiscal year, more than $38.5 million was collected in 86 conferences that attracted more than 18,400 foreign visitors, according to the Rwanda Convention Bureau.

The East African Community (EAC) has a $57.8 million tourism recovery plan to revive a very important sector badly hit by the pandemic.

Investment areas

Rwanda still enjoys being one of the best Doing Business environments as it ranked second by the World Bank.

Kageruka said: "There are different incentives that were put in place for different sectors to facilitate investors.”

"On tourism, we have been encouraging investors to take advantage of master plans in key destination management areas.”

One of the plans is the Kivu belt master plan which has about eight flagship projects to boost tourism by diversifying the type of products people can enjoy across the country.

"These include the exploitation of natural resources such as hot springs and also boost room capacity in secondary cities, Rubavu District being one of them,” said Kageruka.

There is also about 200 hectares of land that has been earmarked to serve the development of a course, high-end villas, and conference facilities in Huye District, among others.

More effort is also being put in eliminating flaws identified in the service delivery area.

Kageruka said the issue is being solved and there is a change of mindset with the private sector investing more in training employees.

"There is also going to be strengthening regulation to be able to help the private sector by creating a certification framework for staff in the hospitality industry to ensure that people serving in the industry are actually trained appropriately,” Kageruka said.

A school of hospitality excellence will also set up, she said, to help in the upskilling of staff in the industry.