Rwanda Development Board (RDB), responsible for promoting Rwanda’s development, reported that revenue from tourism increased from $293 million in 2013 to $303 million in 2014, an increase of 3%. Between July 2013 and June 2014, Rwanda welcomed more than 1.17 million tourists compared to the previous year the country welcomed 1.14 million tourists.

RDB’s goal is to reach $860 million in 2016. However, experts warn RBD that this goal is very ambitious and that it may fail for various reasons, especially service quality.

“Looking at the evolution of tourism in Rwanda across the region, Rwanda still has a lot to do,” said Joseph Opondo, Professor at the Rwanda Tourism University (RTUC). . “There must be a lot of effort to improve the quality of services in different sectors of the country,” Opondo suggested.

According to Opondo, Rwanda has a small number of institutions that provide training on tourism. Reason why there are not sufficient professionals who can offer the quality services.

But the RDB revealed that there are other initiatives that aim to increase tourism revenue. These include conferences and new tourist places such as religious tourism, cave tourism in the North of the Country. Rwanda has also invested in the marketing of tourism at the regional and international level with liaison offices in different countries. Recently, Rwanda was proclaimed as a destination country by “CNN Fodor’s Travel”.

To ensure the development of tourism in Rwanda, since 2013 all citizens from African countries who visit or transit through Rwanda obtain entry visas as soon as they arrive at any border in Rwanda.

Moses Rutayisire, Coordinator of the Department of Tourism in the Rwanda Private Sector Federation (PSF), meanwhile said that there are three projects namely the cable cars on Mount Kalisimbi in 2017, the services in Lake Kivu and the cultural village. These three projects are going to generate huge revenue in the near future.

Rwanda’s tourism revenue has witnessed a very remarkable increase over the past decade. That is to say from 62 million Dollars in 2000 to 303 million Dollars in 2014, and mountain gorilla tourism contributes in large quantities.