Rwanda: Rwanda Development Board (RDB) partnered with Google to map all the tourist attractions of the country. Rica Rwigamba, the Head of Tourism and Conservation at RDB, said that the initiative is part of the government’s strategy to enable the world know all tourist areas in the country.
Rica further stated, “We are proud to be the first African country to work with Google, citizen mappers and tourism operators to systematically map all tourism facilities and attractions to increase discoverability through search engines.”
“Today, more tourism destinations are chosen through online searches and recommendations by other travellers and this presents a great opportunity for our country to earn revenues from tourists who will be visiting the sites”.
Rica observed that the technology will boost the tourism industry as many tourists will be able to easily identify Rwanda touristic features on Google search engine and consequently come to visit areas of interest.
During the exercise, all the national parks, lakes, Congo Nile Trail and key locations and attractions, islands and trails, villages and towns, restaurants, bars and hotels among others will be cartographed allowing visitors to Rwanda to get a Google Map location of them.
About 40 participants, including professional mappers, GIS experts, university students as well as tourism operators are involved in mapping all the major tourism features.
Hailing the project, Hermant Bulani, Branch Manager of Satguru Travel and Tour Services said, “We hope to receive more tourists coming to see the tourism features in Rwanda after searching them on Google.”
Source: All Africa
