Tourism: The way out of aid dependency

The New Year has come with good news from the past year, that revenues from Tourism increased by 54 percent. This has come at a time when Rwanda is striving to move away from foreign aid dependency as President Paul Kagame has persistently urged Rwandans, most recently, during his New Year’s message to Rwandans. The success in the sector that only existed by name before the liberation of our country should catapult us into action to aggressively tap into this newfound gold mine to generate more income in 2009. The Rwanda Office of Tourism, which is one of the seven institutions that were merged to form the Rwanda Development Board, projects that at least 1.14 million visitors will come to Rwanda this year, though the number might go beyond the figure. Let Rwandans take advantage of the situation to get more foreign exchange out of this flow of tourists into the country. To our advantage, Rwanda was voted among “Top 10 Countries to Visit in 2009” by Lonely Planet, one of the worlds leading travel guides.