Tourism industry and local development around the Volcanoes National Park in Rwanda

Abstract

Tourism is the biggest industry in the world. In Rwanda, they are especially the
national parks and more particularly the national park of the volcanoes which attract tourists. The
total revenues of tourism are evaluated to 33,381,369 USD for the period rising from 1994 to 2009.
The contributions are respectively about 93% for the National Park of Volcanoes (NPV), also called
Parc of Virunga, 4% for National park of Akagera (NPA) and 3% for National park of Nyungwe
(NPN).
The redistribution of tourism income made it possible to fund some projects, among which the
housing for the vulnerable people, the basic infrastructures like roads, schools, the development of
the agricultural sector, of the craft industry, etc. around the NPV. At the same time, the private
investments allowed the construction of hotels to accommodate the tourists. The presence of hotels
and tourists had multiplier effects on the use and consumption of the agricultural produce of the
area. People who lived on forest products became agents of protection of park and sedentary
farmers. They were sensitized to create the co-operatives and profited the financing from RDB and
its partners. The RDB works narrowly with the international agencies of environmental protection
to carry out these actions and to thus ensure the conservation of the biodiversity.