During the months of Rwanda June 2016, Rwanda successfully hosted the 26th session of the world economic forum. While Rwandans are still jubilating about the social emotions of the event, the country is ready again for the African union summit which will take place in Kigali city in July this year and it was announced the delegates will convene right in the newly constructed Kigali convention Centre.
The Kigali convention centre is located right in middle of Kigali city with world-class MICE facilities conditioned for international and regional meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions as well as leisure event. This kind of centre is anticipated to put Rwanda-Kigali on the world map and hopefully become a target destination for regional and international events of any nature.
The architectural design of the Kigali convention centre in a perfect oval shaped African traditional art is a big landmark for such a low income earning nation and a sign that Rwanda is progressing politically and economically within two decades after a devastating genocide of 1994. In addition the beauty of the Kigali convention centre plus its colorful lights, green surroundings make it a stunning tourist attraction on its own.
The multipurpose convention centre follows the rising trend of business, leisure and conference tourists coming to Rwanda between 2007 and 2008, as a critical stake within the Rwandan national tourism strategy, the country hopes that revenues from conference tourism will increase and not only contribute to general economic development of Rwanda but also position Kigali city as a leading business hub in East Africa because the centre has 930 conference area very spacious and multifunctional.
As we all know that technological developments around the world are increasingly bringing use of machines instead of human resource labor, this is not the case with the Kigali convention centre, and the centre will act as a meeting place for the various professional sectors of the economy, civil society organizations, academia, NGO’s, media, arts and local individual entrepreneurs to engage in discussions, forums, meetings to look for solutions and priority areas for economic development of Rwanda in this fourth industrial revolution era where economic progress is based on knowledge of the people. In addition many local Rwandans will get jobs particularly the private sector to create global networking business related opportunities and increase their standards of living and alleviate poverty.
The Kigali convention centre comes at a time when many African countries are struggling to build resilient economic sectors and it can only be achieved with such a strong institution offering digital market places for the future meet and exceed the needs of conference tourists visiting the country. Built next to the convention hotel which is five star hotel and Rwanda’s IT office park, it brings a greater connection with various businesses at the same time creating a state of the art business centre in Rwanda.
Whereas Kigali was ranked the 3rd green and clean city in Africa by world travel guide, the centre further strengthens the actions to maintain environmental friendly practices, the city is dominated by the green spaces filled with palm trees, colorful flowers and this is deeply rooted in the cultural of friendly Rwandese. Further it makes it more suitable and comfortable to walk on foot around Kigali despite the city having rapidly heightened its transport infrastructure with modern roads that has revolutionized the public transport service providers coming up with cheap but quick means such as leisure buses, private vehicles, cabs, modern electric trains connecting all corners of the country including national parks. The city has no traffic jam a problem for many of east African cities.
The well established infrastructure so is the hotel and hospitality industry, international hotel chain brands like Marriott, serena have opened up in Kigali with classic local and international cuisines plus, modern bars, theatres, casinos, restaurants, night clubs make Rwandan night life more enjoyable featuring entertaining local artist’s music, dance and drama.
Rwanda online is taking Kigali to be Africa’s internet technology hub with the newly created government online portal “’irembo” in addition recently during a technology conference, paul Kagame the current president vowed that Rwanda shall not be left out of the globalized world network hence wi-fi internet is available town to suit this trendy dot.com era.
Rwanda is popular as a land of a thousand hills due to her green terraced rolling hills, the country has one third of the world’s mountain gorillas, stunning national parks including Volcanoes National Park that have been attracting mainstream tourists, but for this time the Kigali convention centre will add up a hundred if not thousands of visitors coming to Rwanda and Kigali in particular.
Rwanda’s tourism industry is largely boosted by sale of gorilla tracking permits with tourists coming from all over the world to come and see the gorillas.