Kagame built a US$300 million convention centre to make Kigali an African tourism hub. He has so far managed to host an African Union meeting that brought to Rwanda 4,000+ people and a couple smaller events since.
On 5-6 September 2016, Kagame is hosting the Global African Investment Summit that hopefully might attract 1,000.
To get a better sense of the challenge that lies ahead in making Kigali, and Rwanda a tourist hub, let us look at the National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda’s 2015 data.
As indicated in the table Rwanda received 1,219,529 visitors as follows:
* 1 million came from Africa by land – mainly from Burundi, DRC Congo, Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya.
* 35,000 from the Americas;
* 63,000 from Europe;
* 32,000 from elsewhere.
Obviously, the richer tourists with heavy pockets are most likely to be from richer countries in America, Europe and Asia. Shockingly, the total number of the potentially richer tourists that came to Rwanda in 2014 was a mere 130,000.
Ok Mr President, perform a miracle! Make the Kagame Convention Centre pay by making Rwanda a tourist hub. You are evidently starting this mission from a deep hole. You need all the luck.
