With new hotels springing up and existing ones getting makeovers, Rwanda is trying to shake off once and for all its image as a land of state-sponsored killing and rivers of blood to draw larger numbers of well-heeled tourists to enjoy its scenery and rare wildlife.
”Rwanda is known for the wrong reasons — the genocide that happened 10 years ago,” said Rosette Rugamba, head of the Rwanda Office of Tourism and National Parks. ”We are trying to change the image that everyone still has: the image of the genocide.”
Tourism is not new to Rwanda. In the 1980s, this tiny Central African country attracted thousands of visitors drawn by highly endangered mountain gorillas in Volcanoes National Park in the north-west and the ”Big Five” — buffalo, elephant, rhino, lion and leopard — in Akagera National Park in the east.
But after the 1994 genocide, in which an estimated 800 000 people were slaughtered, tourist numbers plummeted, and Rwanda — one of only three countries in the world home to mountain gorillas — knew it would have to work hard to win them back.
”We decided in 2002 to aim to generate $100-million in tourism receipts by 2010 by creating high-value and low-environmental impact experiences,” Rugamba said.
More than two years later, Rwanda is ahead of schedule: attracting 27 000 tourists who generated more than $15-million in revenue in 2004, above the target of 20 000 people and $13-million in receipts, according to official figures.
The influx has caused something of a revival in Rwanda’s hospitality sector, where until very recently even the high-budget traveller was likely to find accommodation outside the capital poor with erratic plumbing, worn linens and greasy restaurant fare.
Now, visitors willing to pay for comfort can get it.
In the north-western town of Gisenyi on Lake Kivu, the four-star Kivu Sun resort has its own private beach with pristine white sun loungers shaded by dark green umbrellas.
”Welcome to paradise,” says a sign in front of the hotel that served briefly as the headquarters for Rwanda’s fleeing Hutu-led former government whose members initiated the genocide of mainly minority Tutsis.
The shop at the Kivu Sun, once a gathering spot for people accused of main roles in the bloody 100-day killing spree, now sells sunscreen, sundries and even polka-dot bikinis.
Those wanting environmentally friendly luxury can head to the country’s first eco-lodge, perched on a crest between the north-western lakes of Ruhondo and Burera, adjacent to the Volcanoes park where the mountain gorillas live.
At $400 a night per couple sharing with full board, the lodge, run by Volcanoes Safaris, doesn’t come cheap, particularly given that $100 a month is more than a decent wage for most Rwandans.
But environmentalists can sleep there with a clear conscience: the electricity is solar generated and the toilets are glorified pit latrines with posh seats where a shovel full of ashes replaces flushing.
The decor would be commonplace in more well-known safari destinations like Kenya but, for the moment, it is unique in Rwanda where the cost to see the gorillas made famous by the late United States researcher Dian Fossey has never been for the faint of wallet.
Tourists shell out $375 to spend an hour slithering around in slippery bamboo thickets, hoping to catch a glimpse of a silverback mountain gorilla and his family.
Yet the number of those visitors is still not where Rwandan officials would like them to be as lingering security fears, driven in part by memories of the genocide, dog the country.
”Oh, we’d so love to track gorillas in Rwanda but we’ve been advised against it on several occasions by travel agents in Switzerland who told us it wasn’t safe,” said Jean, a Swiss primate enthusiast who spoke with Agence France-Presse on a recent visit to neighbouring Uganda where he and his wife had come to see the beasts.
Faced with the dilemma of its bloody past and trying to attract visitors, Rwanda has taken a tack similar to other countries suffering from the same reputation — like Cambodia, where memorials to the victims of the murderous Khmer Rouge regime have become must-see stops for visitors.
One of the highlights of the Kigali city tour — a three-hour coach excursion through the capital — is a visit to the Gisozi Genocide Memorial.
”We are actually talking about the genocide as part of our past, but we are doing it in such a way that people can learn something,” said Rugamba, adding that Rwanda is well aware of the hurdles it faces.
”Rwanda is a very ambitious country,” she said. ”While the whole world is walking, we have to run.” — Sapa-AFP