The potential for coffee tourism development in Rwanda – Neither black nor white

The potential for tourism development in many African nations remains largely untapped because of a range of destination management and image issues. This is the case for Rwanda, which, despite successful development of gorilla viewing tourism, needs to diversify its tourism offerings in order to grow the industry. Rwanda is a known for its high quality coffee, which contributes substantially to its export earnings. This paper explores the opportunity for synergistic, cross-sectoral development of coffee tourism in Rwanda. We draw upon a case study of a large coffee company in Rwanda, utilising in depth qualitative interviews with coffee and tourism stakeholders, to identify the barriers and facilitators for coffee tourism. Primary concerns lie around the connection of the two separate sectors, coffee and tourism, with issues around governance, and reliance upon the growing and availability of coffee production, which is largely governed by unstable international commodity prices. Rwanda’s destination image, especially the impact of the genocide on perceptions of safety and security, is still being seen as a barrier to further development. Access, seasonality and the logistics of coffee tourism also pose challenges, especially in the rural parts of the country where infrastructural problems are more pronounced: similarly so for accommodation and the provision of skilled hospitality providers. Despite the above, we see coffee tourism as providing poor Rwandan farmers the opportunity to link with wealthy consumers from the north and to take greater control of their product, and add value through developing various tourism activities associated with coffee. Coffee tourism also offers a supplementary attraction for Rwanda’s uni-dimensional (gorilla tourism) product which could increase length of stay and visitor spend.