But such experiences are few, Bakunzi says, because most tourists understand the country they are visiting.
THE BEGINNING
Bakunzi’ s fascination with wildlife began when he first encountered the unique mountain gorillas in Uganda’ s Mugahinga National Park in 1994 when he was still a teenager.
And his interest in tourism was further stoked by his foray into Rwanda in late 1994 when he first encountered the country’ s beautiful landscape, its social distinctness, and the volcanoes.“ When I first came here I was fascinated by the fact that people in this country spoke the same language, especially considering that I was coming from a place where we spoke about 10 languages,” he says.
BECOMING A TOUR GUIDE
Bakunzi’ s career as a tour guide was set in motion in 1995 when a tour operator friend of his in Uganda began to send him tourists to help guide them through Rwanda’ s most amazing tourist destinations.
But it was not until 2001 that Bakunzi gained enough experience and the approval and confidence of a couple of tourists who had used his services.
“ When I took one German tourist who was researching on community tourism in Rwanda to Lake Burera and he admitted to me that he was satisfied with my services, I realised that I could actually turn this thing into a business venture,” he says.
The German tourist, Michael Grosspietsch, encouraged Bakunzi to start a tour and travel company and also recommended other tourists to use his services while visiting Rwanda.
That was the turning point; from then on Bakunzi was determined to pursue a career in tourism.
He began by setting up Amahoro Tours, which he officially registered in 2012 and quickly found success. In its first year of operations, Amahoro Tours led seven trips. There were more than 10 the following year and things really started to buzz in the subsequent years. Last year alone, Bakunzi’ s company led more than 30 expeditions and is now listed among the country’ s top 100 companies – certainly not a mean feat for a man with limited education.
Beginning as a one-man-show in 2012, Bakunzi first hired a tour guide in 2003; now his company has 15 – six of whom are full-time staff and the rest part-time.
Nowadays Bakunzi leads a few expeditions himself – in a year he heads between two-four trips,“ especially when the clients are foreign tour operators. That presents me with a chance to learn something from them,” he says.
The company’ s trips are packaged like“ a supermarket” because“ every tourist has a private purpose for travel,” says Bakunzi.“ They’ ll say they want to see gorillas when in actual sense they are here for research or something else.”
Amahoro Tours’ packages are priced as all-inclusive( with the exception of air tickets and visas), and the company charges anywhere from $ 200 for village walks and visiting cultural centres up to a $ 1,500 gorilla trekking experience per person.
Tours are not entirely focused on tourist attractions, Bakunzi says, so over the years he has had to educate himself a lot about Rwanda’ s culture and history.
“ Tourists want to know everything,” he says.“ They want to know about Rwandan culture, history, the economy, politics and even about myself.”
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OCTOBER 2016 EDITION- 21