Rwanda is set to become the first country in Africa to host the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) Global Summit slated for November this year. Also known as the most influential travel and tourism event in the calendar, the summit is expected to kick off on November 1 through 2, bringing together over 2000 participants including 200 high-ranked officials from around the world. The summit comes at a time when tourism has been at the heart of Rwanda’s development effort. The sector is also the country’s leading source of foreign exchange earnings. For Rwanda, the forum will, among others, be utilized to showcase the power of sustainable tourism to protect biodiversity and create thriving communities, particularly using the Ellen DeGeneres campus as an example. This week, The New Times reporter Edwin Ashimwe caught up with Julia Simpson, President and Chief Executive at WTTC, to talk about ongoing preparations, expected high-profile guests as well as likely developments to be announced during the forum. Simpson was in Rwanda for a three day visit, an experience she described as “a must-see destination.” Excerpts Briefly tell us about your experience in Rwanda Rwanda has really blown me away. It's the most beautiful country and it's exceeded all my expectations. We are planning on holding our annual conference here. We call it a summit, and we are going to hold it in November. It's the biggest Travel and tourism event of the calendar globally. So we are going to be bringing 200 CEOs from around the world to hopefully invest and visit this beautiful country. Travel and Tourism are among the sectors that were hit hard by the pandemic. What are you seeing in terms of recovery? So obviously during the pandemic travel and tourism really suffered, but before the pandemic travel and tourism represented 11.8 percent of the economy of Rwanda. So that's a really big contribution. And it also was the third fastest growing travel and tourism country in the world. So, all that passion and idealism for travel and tourism is really bearing fruit. Obviously, we had the pandemic and that was really hard everywhere across the world and lost half their value when people stopped traveling. The good news is that Rwanda is now getting back to 2019 levels, which is great news. And we are expecting over the next 10 years for travel and tourism to grow at double the rate of the general economy in Rwanda, bringing about 500,000 jobs. What kind of participants are you looking to attract in Kigali, for this year’s summit? It's a really big deal for the travel and tourism industry. You get all the top CEOs of the hotels globally who will be coming here to Rwanda. You also get people like Airbnb, tour operators, you get airlines, airports, everybody involved in some way with travel and tourism. And also, you get a lot of sustainability leaders because the WTTC is very proud to be hosting this next event in Rwanda, particularly because of the record that Rwanda has on conservation. Would you also like to uncover the lid on some of the major topics on the agenda? One of the really big things is how Africa, as a continent, has so much potential for travel and tourism. This is the first time WTTC has been to Africa. You've got a growing young population. You've got some of the most beautiful parts of the world in Africa, and we want to show that, by pulling together, by breaking down some of the different boundaries that operate things like open skies, you know, being able to fly freely, to different countries within Africa, the continent could become the biggest travel and tourism powerhouse in the world. Is there any particular experience that you enjoyed the most? Obviously, I went to see the wonderful mounting gorillas, which was breathtaking and humbling. And very good for me cause I had to trek for like two hours through the mud, which was really, really good. But it was a beautiful day, as you can see. We were fortunate to see a family with two silverbacks and it was very humbling to be near those beautiful animals. But I asked the conservationists about the gorillas and the story is incredible. You know, in the 1980s, there were only about 250 left in the world today there are about 417 mountain gorillas in Rwanda, and if you look at the gorillas that are shared, as we know between the Congo and Uganda and Rwanda, and they roam around 1060 to probably 1,100. They've had 45 births in the last two years just here in Rwanda, and I thought it was so incredible. Beautiful animals that are unique. They're only in the world in this part in Rwanda, and obviously in Uganda and Congo. They're only in this place in the world, and you've rescued them from extinction. And the other interesting fact was the reforestation programs and how working with the community and with the farmers who obviously are giving up their land, but they can also see the benefit by actually allowing tourists to be able to come respectfully and visit. As you depart the country, and based on the preparations, what is your take home? Well Rwanda takes everyone by surprise. The beauty, the innovation, it's very, very technical tech orientated. The youth, people are very kind, people are very polite, and it really is very, very visionary under your President, (Paul Kagame). He has done an absolutely incredible job uniting a country after a terrible period and moving forward, and I can absolutely promise you every person I met here has been a delight and made me feel very welcome indeed. As it stands, how many participants are you looking to attract at the conference? So, at the conference, we are going to be bringing maybe 1500 delegates from around the world, and they're going to be looking to invest here and they can't invest unless they come and see it for themselves. It's really important that our summits tend to bring a lot of investors and hopefully it will be very successful. What can Rwanda showcase at the summit? Well, first of all, ecotourism and your major contribution globally to conserving species and wildlife and reforestation. The next one would be innovation. This is a very, very modern country and sometimes people that don't know Africa have certain preconceptions and ruwaRwanda really busts all those myths apart. It's also a very safe country. It's very clean, and it's a very green and beautiful country. The other thing that you've got is a fantastic airline, RwandAir, headed up by an amazing woman CEO (Yvonne Manzi Makolo). Not only is she the Chief Executive, in aviation, which is very rare, she's going to become the chair of IATA. I met her, really courageous. I flew RwandAir to come here. Great flight on time, fabulous service, everything you would expect from a top-class airline. She's just announced another new long-haul aircraft, A330, currently there are direct routes into Europe, as we know into Brussels and London, and I'm really hoping we're going to see that new plane flying to another big European destination, which is going to make it very easy to vist Rwanda. I think it's important to have RwandAir as a partner during the summit. Because most of the delegates’ experience will happen before landing into the country. It will happen on the airplane. So, it is a very important ambassador for the whole country. Also, we will look at sustainability. Obviously seeing that we represent airlines, we want to look at sustainable aviation fuel. There's not enough of it being produced globally at the minute, and it's very expensive. It can be eight times as expensive as kerosene. But we are all driving towards having more sustainable flying. Parting words Well, I think Rwanda has stolen my heart and I'm going to be back again very soon and hopefully be back with about 1,500 delegates who can also enjoy this wonderful country at the WTTC Summit.
