Use sports to market our tourism offerings

Rwanda may be a small landlocked country in the Great Lakes Region, but it is increasingly achieving milestones that should turn other African countries green with envy including Kenya.

Last week, renowned German football club Bayern Munich announced a five-year football development and tourism promotion partnership with Rwanda. The partnership will see the club work specifically with Rwanda’s Ministry of Sports and Tourism to set up a football academy to strengthen the development of football.

In addition, the club will display Visit Rwanda branding on match day LED boards at the club’s 75,000-seater Allianz Arena as well as on the sleeves of the team’s jersey and different activities will be organised to promote tourism and investment opportunities in Rwanda. The new platinum partnership is aligned with the club’s long-term goals including helping Rwanda grow in sports by setting up projects for youth football.

There is no gainsaying that Rwanda’s unique landscapes have earned it the name ‘the Land of a Thousand Hills’ and over the past two decades, the country has experienced political and social stability supported by strong economic growth.

By partnering with FC Bayern Munich, which is the largest sports club in the world and one of the most successful in Europe, this easily puts Rwanda a cut above the rest in the continent.

Adding onto the fact that Rwanda Tourism has a running contract with Arsenal Football Club should be the reason why a country such as Kenya, which has comparatively many tourist attraction sites, should be a subject of debate for missing such an opportunity.

Unlike Rwanda which only boasts of Gorilla sanctuaries at Virunga Mountains and which attract a sizeable number of foreigners, Kenya takes pride in having the Maasai Mara Game Reserve and many other attraction sites.

This thus begets the question as to why our own Ministries of Sports and Tourism were beaten by its Rwanda counterparts to lure big football names to improve the sports tourism landscape.

In essence, Kenya is only famous for the Magical Kenya Open, a four-day golf tournament that features top local and world professionals. Kenya should also emulate the move and activate aggressive marketing through sports both locally and beyond the borders to advertise what the country boasts of as the cradle of mankind and it will certainly impact the economy.