The ceremony to officially launch operations of Onomo Hotel Kigali brought together different people who work in hospitality, hotels and tourism sector in Rwanda with different members of the private sector, diplomats and local authorities.
The $20 million Hotel is a three-star hotel painted with Rwandan traditional articles, baskets and other artifacts made in cow dung mixed with dust beautifully colored.
The hotel has three meeting rooms with capacity to receive up to 200 people, a Business Centre, a restaurant and a bar open 24/7 in addition to an outdoor swimming pool and fitness room.
The hotel has fast 3G LTE internet which enables clients to keep connected to the world once at the hotel.
Located in the Nyarugenge District, close to most of Kigali city’s businesses and a few minutes from its center, ONOMO Hotel Kigali will offer 99 rooms and 10 modern and fully-equipped suites in line with international standards, combining comfort and modernity.
The President of Onomo Hotels, Ruggieri Julien said they chose to extend their operations in Rwanda due to its vision.
“We started our operations from West Africa. To extend our operations, we found that Rwanda is the East African country with fast growing economy and good governance and then found that building a three-star in Rwanda is a good thing,” he said.
The Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Trade and Industry, Michel Sebera said Onomo comes to the Rwandan market to expand Rwanda’s tourism based on conference hosting.
He said: “Rwanda has set up a firm platform to help private business people in expanding their investment. Rwanda supports the economy driven on services and will always help the private investors to provide good services.”
Rwanda projects to yield a $74 million income from the conference hosting tourism this fiscal year up from $42 million yielded in 2017.
Miss France 2000, Sonia Rolland Uwitonze is Onomo Hotel’s brand ambassador and she says it is a privilege and pride for her.
“It is special for me because I have never been employed by any hotel in Rwanda before. I was very impressed by the fact that they used the Imigongo arts on the walls of the hotel and that is why I accepted to be their ambassador. When you look at the hotel from afar, you see Rwandan identity and arts. I am very proud to be the ambassador of hotel that defends the Rwandan local products and partners,” she said.
The Onomo Hotels chains has now 12 hotels on the African Continent with plans to have finished constructing a total 20 hotels by 2022.
The latest hotel belonging to Onomo Hotels was officially opened in Durban on October 7 this year adding to others located in Dakar, Abidjan, Libreville, Bakamo, Lomé, Conakry, Rabat, Cape Town, Sandton, and Johannesburg among other African cities.
The official opening of Onomo Hotel Kigali was graced by fashion models including Moshions House, Inzuki Designs and Art Explosion with talented acrobats from Gatenga Youth Centre.
Official numbers by the Rwanda Development Board indicate that in 2017, Rwanda had 10 488 hotel rooms.
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