Greg Bakunzi has established a reputation as a leading Rwandan tourism business guruwith a sharp eye for community development. Bakunzi is the owner of Amahoro Tours and Red Rocks Cultural Center, both based in Musanze, northern Rwanda, as well as Amani Safaris, based in DR Congo.

He talks to Joseph Ondiek about his companies’ stellar performance in Rwanda’s tourism industry and his commitment to link tourism, conservation and community development…

Tell us about your background

I grew up as a refugee in Uganda. My parents escaped to the country during the then simmering ethnic conflict that culminated into the 1994 genocide in my motherland country Rwanda. However, after the country was liberated, I came back to Northern Rwanda in 1997 where I did stints as a tour guide for about for years, offering tourists mountain gorillas trekking. However, through my tour guiding experience, I came to realize the country had much more to offer beyond the mountain gorillas, and this led me to establish my own company, Amahoro Tours, to offer alternative attractions apart from the gorillas.

After the establishment of Amahoro Tours, what was your immediate success story?

Since Amahoro Tours was established in 2001, I believe it naturally clicked with the tourists and the local community who needed an alternative source of adventure. That’s why, today my company has served over 200,000 tourists from across the globe. We mainly serve them unique Rwandan cultural experiences that they can only get when they visit Rwanda.

So what’s the success story of Amahoro Tours and Red Rocks Cultural Center?

I have changed the lives of tens of employees serving my companies and about ten communities across DRC Congo and Rwanda. We also started affordable housing projects for poor families. The local community has also gained tremendously from different programmes my companies have established to uplift their living standards, particularly around the Virunga Mountains, which straddle DRC, Rwanda and Uganda.

What actually drew you to tourism as a career option?

Tourism is an industry that has – and will continue – to connect people of diverse backgrounds. I grew up in a different society but when I came back to Rwanda, I knew I would use tourism to link people.

Tell us about the programmes offered by Amahoro Tours and Red Rocks

At Amahoro Tours we mostly offer wildlife safaris, gorilla trekking and hiking. However, Red Rocks is another kettle of the fish, since we mostly emphasize on community development as an adjunct to tourism and conservation. For instance, we offer student exchange programmess, community tourism and, of course, affordable accommodation to visitors.

What made you establish the two separate entities?

I first wanted a company basically focused on offering services to protected areas. Then, I later came to discover this can’t thrive without involving the local community, hence the birth of Red Rocks Rwanda in 2011.

What was your first involvement in local community development?

It was facilitating local women in banana beer making and traditional crafts production so they could also earn from tourism.

Roughly how much do they earn?

About US$150-­200 per person each month, depending on different dynamics.

Tell us the number of tourists who come back for community-based tours

At least 12­-13% of our clients.

After running Amahoro Tours for all these years, what lessons have you learned in this business?

To thrive, we have to diversify and innovate. These are two key pillars of business development. Many people, particularly my competitors, are only focused on the mountain gorillas. But there are other tourism products that should be initiated and aggressively marketed. That’s what Amahoro Tours and Red Rocks are doing in Rwanda, and Amani Safaris has embarked on in DRC.

So, what advice can you give to young people interested in joining the industry?

First they need to be passionate and committed to their work. They should live and breathe their passion or else nothing is going to emerge out of their time and resources they would expend to establish such kind of business. The industry needs innovative people, since it’s also evolving with the passing of time. They should be resilient and hard working.

Do you believe this industry can grow without attending international fairs and exhibitions?

Yes. It all boils down to the network we eventually manage to create both locally and internationally. And with the age of technology comes different tools like the internet, so we can manage to market ourselves without having to physically attend these fairs.

Besides fairs, how do you manage to market your companies?

I heavily depend on word-of-mouth referrals from our clients. They’re our critical marketing resources. The internet has also become an important tool to market ourselves – Facebook, TripAdvisor, Lonely Planet, name it.

Where do you see yourself in a couple of years from now?

I want to ensure both Amahoro Tours and Red Rocks Cultural Center become the leaders in tourism, conservation and community development. That’s why they were established in the first place.