Various hotel chains in Rwanda have decided to slashing room rates for more than 50% of stays as the East African country suffers a coronavirus-induced drop in travel, APA reported Friday in Kigali.
Despite the current strategy adopted by the government to turn the country into a hub for meetings and conferences, Rwanda Convention Bureau (RBC) recently said that at least 20 conferences initially scheduled for March and April were postponed.
The event cutbacks have eroded demand for business travel as well. Other hotels are also pondering staff layoffs in order to cut costs in the midst of dwindling revenues.
“We are already feeling the impact. Due to the outbreak of the virus outbreak, 85 per cent of reservations have been cancelled by the customers,” said a member of a local hotel based in Kigali. “We have reduced workers because there is no work. As we speak, only three workers are keeping the rooms.”
In addition to that, there have been reservation cancellations related to events being called off in Kigali, another hotel manager tols APA in an excluive interview.
The novel coronavirus has caused many people to abandon their travel plans to Rwanda, canceling flights and hotel accommodations without rebooking.
On Thursday, Rwanda’s national carrier, RwandAir announced the cancellation of all arriving and departing commercial flights to and from Kigali beggining at midnight of Friday for an initial period of
30 days.
The decision comes after three additional coronavirus cases were identified late Wednesday in Rwanda bringing the confirmed total to eleven.
CU/abj/APA