RWANDA’S NATIONAL CUSTOMER CARE & SERVICE DELIVERY TASK FORCE TAKES AIM
Rwanda’s efforts to further improve service delivery and customer care across the country, not just for foreign tourist and business visitors but for Rwandan too, have gained further momentum last week when the national customer care and service delivery task force visited a number of hotels across Kigali.
Some 20 hotels were singled out for further improvements to meet the standards set by Rwanda Development Board’s Tourism and Conservation Department following visits by members of the task force to their premises.
RDB had in recent years accelerated training and refresher courses for staff in the tourism and hospitality industry with some significant progress but sources from Kigali have conceded that the country needs to redouble its efforts to support the growing sector with competent and well skilled personnel. The opening later this year of the region’s first Marriott Hotel in Kigali will be a litmus test of sorts to establish how these efforts will pay off. Marriott already has a number of Rwandans working in some of their Gulf properties while others are undergoing training within Rwanda, learning the trade in private vocational institutions or by attending courses at Kenya’s Utalii College or the Hotel and Tourism Training Institute in Jinja / Uganda.
‘Tourism is now Rwanda’s number one business. It is not enough to have hotels and resorts and lodges like you find them in the other countries in East Africa. The staff have to be at par with those too, the food quality and presentation must match what tourists get there. We have made a lot of progress but more needs to be done to retrain staff who have been on the job for a while and give them a new outlook how to serve guests. Service is as much a mentality as it is a practical skill’ said a regular source from Kigali when discussing the ongoing initiatives and activities by the task force and from RDB. Training the next generation for the future – well done to the Land of a Thousand Hills.
