Kigali Serena and Nyungwe Forest Lodge have been qualified as the only five star hotels in the country by East African Level Standards.
Thirty hotels were Wednesday given stars as recognition for their hard work.
The ranking is graded at the East African level standards. This aims at encouraging competitiveness among local hoteliers.
Rwanda is the second country after Tanzania to get the rankings, and the assessments were done by experts from the region.
In terms of better services, hotels with stars ranging from five to three tend to give better services despite the fact they might have expensive rates compared to the rest.
While four stars were awarded to Lemigo Hotel, The Manor Hotel, Mille Collines Hotel and Lake Kivu Serena.
Three stars were awarded to eight hotels including;Virunga, La Palme, Alpha Palace, Sports View, Beau Sejour, La Palisse, Golden Hill and Top Tower.
Hotels awarded with two stars include;Sabyinyo Silver Back Lodge, Michael Den, STIPP Rubavu, Stipp Kigali, Dream Inn, Mostej(Rubavu), Ishema (Musanze), Peace Land(Rubavu), L e Belvedere(Rubavu), Home Inn(musanze), Credo (Huye district), Aberdeen, Ninzi Hill Hotel, Okapi Hotel, Impala Hotel and Saint Anne Hotel (Musanze district).
Relay`s Gorilla Hotel is the only hotel appearing in the One star hotel category.
Hoteliers promise to do more to improve their stars by offering better services. “I want to hire more competitive staff and train those I have. I also intend to offer more varieties especially on cuisine,” said Saeed Alam the owner of The Manor Hotel.
The RDB Tourism and Conservation Department Head Rica Rwigamba explained,“The classification system covers 16 sections of the establishments and brings out different aspects of service delivery essential for customer satisfaction including safety and security, comfort and enjoyment.”
“It also covers physical and tangible characteristics of accommodation facilities such as location, dimension of the rooms, supplies in bathrooms and frequency of change of linen.”
“The non-tangible elements such as comfort, ambience, elegance, style and luxury are also assessed. The system also covers social contact in aspects such as staff grooming and communications skills,” added Rwigamba.
John Mirenge the Rwandair Chief Executive Officer (CEO) said,“In the past it was hard to guide foreign clients but with the new guide which will be placed in local aircrafts clients will be more informed on where to spend their leisure time for example.”
According to the RDB CEO John Gara, “these star ratings will certainly have various positive effects. This is an incentive and encouragement for our establishments to continuously improve. In addition, the discerning consumer will have an easy reference to what their preferred accommodation would be.”
Rwanda’s minister of East Africa Monique Mukaruriza noted, “This is timely with the region’s plan of forming a tourism hub with inputs from member states,” she said adding that there are many advantages of attracting more tourists including foreign exchange earnings that stabilise local currency.
Meanwhile the stars will be given yearly in order to rank those which were not recognized partly because during the assessment period they were still upgrading their standards like hotel Umubano formerly known as Laico regency which is being renovated.
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