NYARUGENGE - Hotel des Mille Collines is going to embark on a US$5 million renovation programme which will see the hotel change its face in nine months’ time. The project was announced by the hotel management on Monday before the media and other dignitaries at its conference hall.

Present at the function was the State Minister in charge of Industry and Investment Promotion, Vincent Karega. In his remarks, he thanked the hotel management for thinking about this project, acknowledging that it was in line with the government’s policy of developing the country’s tourism industry.

Renovations include the extension of the lobby with a lobby jazz bar. The hotel will close for the first three weeks of October and thereafter open for business as work goes on elsewhere, on the October 27.

When asked why they had decided to renovate a seemingly sound hotel, Jean de Dieu Mbarushimana, the hotel’s Administrative and Financial Manager, said that the most outstanding reason was their clients.

"You see most of our clients are international business people. So we saw that there was need to put this hotel on an international level as a way of giving comfort to our clients,” he remarked.

He further revealed that the hotel had secured a loan from the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC), payable in a period of ten years.

The hotel, which had 66 rooms in 1973, currently has 113 rooms and is owned by Miko Investments which it bought from Sabena Hotels in 2005.

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