The development and promotion of heritage tourism in Rwanda

Abstract

Taping into a growing global tourism market, the government of Rwanda has been marketing and promoting tourism as being considered as one of the sectors that will help the country achieve its economic targets through revenue gains and job creation. However, Rwanda’s tourism product has understandably, been aimed largely at gorilla tourism so as to raise much needed foreign currency. While this has been proving positive as regards achieving industry targets, dependence on an exclusive product could be detrimental to the industry in the future. This research that was carried out in Rwanda’s Museums focused on a significant form of tourism in Africa, namely heritage tourism with specific reference to its development and promotion in Rwanda. The results reveal that heritage tourism, and domestic heritage tourism in particular, is experiencing growth with genocide museums playing a large part in this growth. The findings further suggest that the heritage management, especially marketing of heritage tourism can be improved. The research provides several procedures for improvement in management of heritage destination that include the assessment of heritage resources, the role of tourism managers, and different marketing strategies for heritage sites.