Category: National News

Rwanda’s poor customer care scares away tourists.

By: Patrick Bigabo

Every Rwandan prides in them because several world influential persons are increasingly visiting Rwanda just to glance at the rare giant mountain gorillas in the cold Virunga Volcano Mountains. While at the Gorilla naming ceremony in 2005, the Director General of Office of Rwanda Tourism and National Parks (ORTPN) Rosette Rugamba disclosed that by then about 90,000 people from over eighty countries in the world had since visited Rwanda to see the mountain gorillas.

ORTPN and most importantly private tourism partners especially tour operators deserve a pat-on-their-back for excellent efforts in promoting Rwanda’s mountain gorillas-a special product Rwanda offers and naturally not found else where in the world apart from Uganda and Dr-Congo.

But in reality there are things that should be discussed that are silently and negatively ruining Rwanda’s tourism sector. One would ask of the 90,000 people that have visited the country, how many have returned to the country and how many have knowledge about Rwanda’s other tourism products apart from the endangered mountain gorilla species?

It is absurd when an American visitor with $10,000 to spend in Africa only has a plan of visiting Rwanda for only the purpose of seeing gorillas (pays $300 for tracking, $100 for hotel and $300 on others) and flies to Botswana to spend the balance by glimpsing at crocodiles and the big five cats yet Rwanda has similar products.

The country is losing a lot of foreign currency as a result of ORTPN’s negligence in its public relations campaign which seems to only hinge of gorilla publicity. Since Rwanda has graduated from a genocide country to a smart mountain gorilla nest country, ORTPN should embark on an aggressive campaign making other tourism products known so that tourists learn of other choices Rwanda offers including rare monkey species, Nyungwe forest, and Akagera national park’s flora and fauna , birds and other tourism potentials especially mountain climbing and biking.

When Business Daily talked to visiting Americans recently they noted, “When Americans are in unfamiliar surroundings, they worry about four things most of all. We want to feel safe, we hope that the people will be friendly, we want to have the ability to see the countryside, and we want to make sure that we understand how to exchange our dollars for the local currency”.

Hoping that people they find in a given country would be friendly is an important point that shouldn’t be gauged at a level of mere friendship. This feeling encompasses good customer care and hospitality on both service providers and entire population but Rwanda is weakest in these areas. Chronic street beggars and petty merchandise vendors harassing tourists walking on the streets has continuously and negatively impacted on Rwanda’s ability to retain tourists for more days than they would have wished to stay.

Most tourists usually like feeling the country they visit by flocking to down-town shops, restaurants and bars. Unfortunately customer care in Rwanda is appalling especially in hotels as waitresses and waiters have failed to attach importance to their jobs first and their clients. One is saddened by a waiter at La Siera restaurant who looks on as a white guest chokes to near infinity without giving any help not even finding out whether food served contains too much peeper or is contaminated by a weird substance.

In the western world working as a waitress or waiter is a job held with high esteem. Most college and university students in the western world scramble to be hired as waiters or waitresses in restaurants and hotels during their vacation. As a waiter one meets several people from anywhere. Once such people have chosen to come to your hotel then you should make them feel at home and at least wear a smile on your face to signal that everything is alright and that you are in control of the situation as their stay lasts.

European hotels are strong due to their professional and customer friendly waitresses and specialized chefs. Dishes prepared by chefs in such hotels determine the number and class of clients flocking that hotel. Therefore, European hotels invest a lot in best chefs available on their market. However, Rwandan hotels lack professional chefs thus dishes prepared are not attractive to most tourists. Intercontinental hotel which might have better chefs suffers from poor customer care a syndrome highly spread among its waitresses and waiters.

Rwandans haven’t been attracted into training as professional chefs since such a ‘cooking job’ isn’t seen as worth boasting about as one would do in Europe. Telling a fellow Rwandan that you work as a cook in a hotel would sound like one is a society misfit and thus be rejected. Rwanda hotels should consider hiring foreign experienced chefs who would later significantly improve hands-on experience of local cooks.

Though most workers in Rwanda hotels have not acquired relevant professional training, this shouldn’t be excuse for their failure to wear a smile during service delivery. Not enough not to ask clients whether everything is fine in the middle of their meals or whether they need something that couldn’t have been provided. This also shouldn’t be an excuse not honouring clients’ demands on time. These are basics for better customer relations.

In better hotels clients appreciate service and care rendered to them and in return give tip (token of appreciation usually money) back to the waiter or waitress assigned to a particular table and several appreciation words like thank you for your good service, meal and drink, it’s been nice being here we promise to bring our friends here bla bla.

Borrowing a leaf from Egypt’s failures in the customer care sector, the Egyptian government has had to hire experts to train thousands of Egyptians in learning the importance of wearing a smile on their faces while serving clients with different products and services. A smile can improve overall business returns to service providers.

Some shops in Kigali where an ordinary-looking citizen though loaded with lots of cash in their wallets are undermined by shop keepers just because the assumed client isn’t looking tidy to afford a frw60, 000 pair of shoes or because the client is holding a nokia-torch-phone yet bargaining for a suit valued at frw150, 000 would end up being told off that ‘you wont manage the price or we are not selling et al. However, in neighbouring East Africa shop keepers struggle for clients on verandas thus confusing the client who fails to chose where to go because he is highly valued as king.

Most restaurants in Kigali have bogus policies in place such as forcing clients to pay money before their orders are taken. In reality this is a sign of poor customer relations. This method is not acceptable globally because a client is not valued but only the money he carries that is of interest to the greedy service provider and therefore the client would walk away to another place where he would be served, later pays for the services and feels respected.

For Rwanda tourism to improve, adjustments must be made to fade the existing situation especially encouragement of local investment in ICT services. The existing high taxes on ICT equipment and subsequent taxes levied on internet cafes businesses should be scrapped. ORTPN should consider establishing a mega ICT center either at its premises or any prime location in the city and other centers countrywide to reduce the burden to tourists fighting for space in congested-slow-internet cafes that even close business before 8:00PM. Tourists would always be given priority in such ORTPN-ICT centers. In the whole of Kigali, Remera has more (six) internet cafes than any other suburbs of the city. Two of the Remera ICT centers operate until late 11:00PM.

ORTPN announced earlier this year that they became self-sustaining and were no longer depending on government budget allotments. Why can’t ORTPN consider setting up a regional tourism college that would specialize in hotel management, hospitality management so that Rwandan young men and ladies could acquire professional training and rid the country of the embarrassment of poor customer care despite being a desirable tourism destination on the continent.

No visitor has been attracted to the non vibrant local media especially the national television that runs none or poorly researched programs. The decision to allocate most airtime to foreign propaganda channels especially CNN, BBC, and Euro News is a sign of defeat to local television program producers. It makes no clear sense when a visitor isn’t exposed to local soaps or and sensible well researched local documentaries. Local newspapers mostly published in Kinyarwanda inconvenience foreigners in following events on ground. Radio production standards in the country don’t attract reasonable listenership for most purely broadcast in vernacular.

Tourists especially those from Europe and America told Business Daily that they prefer hiring a drive-yourself-car than crowding in scarce jeeps provided by few tour operating companies. Private tour-operators can’t afford the exorbitant taxes levied on vehicles thus reason for inability to import more tour-designed vehicles. Local operators prefer registering their vehicles as Ugandan or Kenyan where taxes are not imposed on imported vehicles designed for tourism.

History is a major tourism product for most European countries. There is no country or nation without history. However, Rwanda’s cultural heritage has been poorly packaged as a tourism product with an unsatisfactory argument that Rwanda’s cultural issues are delicate to handle and therefore tough to package as products. But reality remains that Rwanda can’t hide away from her past especially monarchism, colonialism, ethnicity, genocides and later the genocide memorial cites. Subsequent former Rwanda kingdom and historical artifacts should be well documented, rehabilitated, gazetted and publicized to add value to the country’s history and tourism attractability other than over-emphasising gorillas and peace basket. All these are facts that interest tourists and researchers.

Comfort and security has become a very important factor for perfect interior architectural design but some tourists Business Daily has interacted with say some local hotels have poor interior designs especially in the bedrooms and bathrooms. The bathrooms have not been given serious consideration and are too small such that it would require one to be an acrobat to manage such a setting. Those investing in tourism accommodation business especially hotels should think big while designing bedrooms and bathrooms and most importantly kitchens in self-contained units. They can also consider investing in accommodation units made out of tarpaulin due to their flexibility clients are yearning for as alternative to five star suites.

Most desirable, the impassable road linking Ruhengeri Township to Kinigi guests’ lodge where tourists stay before going gorilla tracking should be quickly tarmaced and ORTPN will have cemented unrivaled Rwanda’s success in regional gorilla tourism. This will subsequently attract more investments in the area and reduce on time lag and accident risks by tourists driving to Kinigi during the rainy season.

Finally, unless customer care is aggressively improved and more emphasis given in promotion of other tourism products Rwanda offers, the country will continue missing more money from tourists and this could subsequently derail Rwanda’s emerging tourism potential that has been built by the mountain gorillas as a product.

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