On April 30, 2016, over 9,000 pilgrims from across the globe attended the Jubilee Audience at the Vatican in Rome, at the invitation of Pope Francis.

Greg Bakunzi, a tour operator from Musanze District in the Northern Province was lucky to be among the pilgrims. Bakunzi is the founder and Managing Director of Amahoro Tours, a local tour and travel company. 

He is also the founder and Managing Director of Red Rocks Intercultural Exchange Centre and Backpackers’ Campsite, also in Musanze. 

With the two companies, he is able to merge his vision of a sustainable community-based tourism model which includes local communities in the tourism value chain. At Red Rocks for instance, there is a craft and basket weaving center from which locals produce and sell their crafts. Others take tourists on paid home stays, while others brew and sell traditional sorghum beer to tourists.

While in Rome, Bakunzi did not content himself with just attending the Jubilee Conference and seeing the Pope. 

"As a person who is interested in cultural and historical sites I figured out that maybe Rome would be one of my opening sites for my vision to have set up Red Rocks,” he starts. 

"I thought about where I should go next, because I’ve been to France in the museum two times, and then I went to other parts of the country as well. I’ve been to Milan also in Italy but I didn’t think this was enough.”

While in Milan a few years ago, he landed on useful information about the history of Rome, and how its culture and history is preserved and sold:

"I thought this would be the best place to go and see what they have on offer.

I got a very good chance when I was there as I managed to visit the Vatican Museum and I also visited different other churches around Rome with all these nice historical buildings which were built as way back as the 19th century,” he explains further.

Lessons learnt

One of Bakunzi’s main interests was to find out the number of inbound tourists to Rome per day. And he did, to his pleasant surprise. 

"I managed to ask their office of tourism how many visitors come to Rome per day. I was told that back in 2010 they were receiving about 700,000 tourists per day in Rome, and now they are estimating more than a million people per day.

That showed me that once our historical sites and our culture are well marketed and developed, we might even be getting more people to come and partake of our history and culture. When I talk of historical sites I mean for instance all these churches, prisons, schools, centers that have been in existence for more than 100 years. They have a history behind them and that history needs to be packaged and looked after and then they get to be mentioned all over the world.”

He is positive that if Rwanda starts to get more of such tourists coming to experience her culture and history then the country has the potential to become number one in this market segment. 

"I have to say that there was a lot of advantage on my side because I learnt a lot from the trip. 

I think it’s an eye opener to what I’m doing as a person. If could get a chance of sharing and staying in touch with them then I’m sure that there is a lot I can get to learn from them and there’s a lot that we can do here in terms of historical and cultural tourism.”

He also took time off to interact with residents, taking in their most curious questions about Rwanda:

"I told them a lot about Rwanda and they were curious to come and learn more about our history because as a people they are so culturally attached, so they want to know about the history and about the culture of Rwanda, because that’s what they’ve been selling for thousands of years yet they still want to know how other countries are doing it.”

Rome attractions

"The pope is the first attraction, being the head of the Catholic Church,” Bakunzi notes emphatically before continuing;

"Then there are all these churches, historical sites and buildings …, so it’s like Rome has got a history to tell, and that history attracts people from all over the world. So even us here we can do the same and then we sell it. That’s why people are attracted to gorillas because they were packaged and sold to the world.”

He spent a total of ten days in Rome. While there, he took a bus ride around the Vatican City and went site-seeing, among others. 

"The bus ride takes about two hours and they tell you everything about the city. They have all these different kinds of souvenirs that you can’t miss buying something from them. I think in Rwanda we need to have better souvenirs and think beyond the baskets and think about what we can sell to guests when they come to the country.”

As we wind up the interview I ask Bakunzi how easy it is to travel from Rwanda to Rome and he retorts; 

"Everything needs commitment. If you are committed and really want to get there you will make it no matter what.

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