Nyungwe National Park to Benefit from New Attractions
The opening of Rwanda’s first ‘canopy walk’ at the Nyungwe National Park has rang in a period of intense work to create more infrastructure across the forest park, all aimed to attract a lot more visitors under the tourism diversification plan of the Rwanda Development Board – Tourism and Conservation.
The park was only officially created in 2005 and started to feature in focused promotions and marketing activities from 2008 on wards, when plans became known that Dubai World was constructing the ‘Nyungwe Forest Lodge’, which has opened earlier in the year and provides top range accommodation for tourist visitors. A new interpretation and information centre for visitors is now also open and will allow tourists to learn more about the forest’s flora and fauna and appreciate efforts by Rwanda to maintain and where necessary restore the fragile ecosystems on which the country depends as water towers and tourism attractions. As part of Rwanda’s diversification drive for the tourism industry Nyungwe was a welcome addition to the range of attractions on offer for visitors, apart from tracking Mountain Gorillas of course, and bird watchers are a growing segment amongst visitors to see and hear a large number of birds, many of them endemic to Rwanda’s forests and lake shores. Estimates given by the Rwanda Development Board – Tourism and Conservation are that visits to Nyungwe are likely to triple or quadruple over the coming two to three years from the present about 4.500 visitors per annum, which would be a substantial boost of course for the locally ‘grown’ guides, the local economy and the country at large.
Rwanda Ventures into Canopy Tourism
The Development Board (RDB) last week launched canopy walk tourism in Nyungwe National Park on as part of a strategy to diversify tourism attractions.
This will be the first ever hanging platform which will allow tourists to view different animal species in Nyungwe forest. This is the first kind of tourism in East Africa and the third of its kind in Africa.
The Canopy Walkway which has been competed in the Nyungwe Forest National Park in south western Rwanda is 50 meters above the ground level, and 90 meters long. The dizzying platform is above a steep and deep valley trotting across massive forest. Canopy tourism is a strategy aimed to make tourists spend slightly longer time in Rwanda as they sample interesting tourist attractions.
John Gara, CEO RDB says the platform is 50 meters above ground level and 90 meters long. It allows tourists to view butterflies, birds and blue monkeys that dwell in the upper scales of the forest. The forest has 13 rare primate species, the world’s largest ever recorded arboreal troop of black/white Columbus monkeys, over 300 species of birds and 100 types of orchid.
Adding canopy walk tourism comes at a time Rwanda was in 2009 named one of the hot top 10 travel destinations by Lonely Planet, an organization that names global top tourist destinations. The Kwita Izina, the annual gorilla naming ceremony has partly contributed to Rwanda ‘s rankings a world tourist destination.
The was introduced in 2005 with the aim of creating awareness for the conservation of the endangered mountain Gorillas. Usually thousands of international, regional and local visitors flock to foot Virunga mountain ranges to visit the endangered mountain gorillas. To give the tourist more variety, Rwanda also introduced boats on Lake Kivu linking Volcanoes and Nyungwe National Parks. Other products include cave tourism and two city tours; in Huye and Rubavu.
With that big package and the world recovering from the global financial crisis, Gara projects that the country’s tourism receipts will rise by 6.4% this year. A statement issued by RDB says the country expects $187 million, up from $175 million last year.