One cannot talk about the Greater Virunga Landscape conservation without the tourism industry because tourism revenue plays a very big role in supporting biodiversity conservation in the Greater Virunga Landscape.
Tourism remains the only product that the buyer buys and enjoys but leaves it where it was, for future buyers. This industry deserves then special attention for different players from state actors, non-governmental organizations, civil society, community-based organizations and donor communities.
In this respect, the Greater Virunga Transboundary Collaboration with funding from the Kingdom of the Netherlands under a four-year programme called “Conserving the Greater Virunga” has commissioned a consultancy to design and develop a comprehensive user-friendly web and mobile platform that enhances tourism connectivity and experience for marketing and booking tour operators, tours, Safaris, trackers, porters and craft sellers in the Greater Virunga Landscape
Robylinks Solutions Ltd was selected to undertake this assignment, the reason of the ongoing consultations and training of the potential users in the Protected Areas Network of the Greater Virunga Landscape shared between the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Republic of Rwanda and the Republic of Uganda.
The training sessions held at the Headquarters of the Volcanoes National Park of Rwanda on Monday, December 9th, 2024, and another one held at the Mgahinga Gorilla National Park of Uganda on Tuesday, December 11th, 2024, are aligned with this objective.
During this training, the consultants explained the functionality of this system. It has its web version and the Android mobile application version. Participants have received clarifications on different sections of the web version, including the home, tours and safaris, tour operators, destinations and the section of the craft sellers.
It was noted that this system will have different categories of users, from the clients all over the world, the tour operators working in the Greater Virunga Landscape, the craft sellers as well as the Managers of the protected areas who mainly will be the administrators of the system to ensure data quality and validation of information uploaded in the system. All those users will have to register their accounts with this system.
According to Mr. Robert Omuya, the consultant from Robylinks Solutions Ltd, the system is user-friendly to the point that when a tourist realizes that the proposed safari doesn’t meet his expectations, he /she will be able to create his own safari in the system.
About the destinations, the system will be showing the different tours per GVTC Partner States countries( Democratic Republic of Congo, the Republic of Rwanda and the Republic of Uganda) in the platform.
For the craft sellers section: different registered craft sellers will be appearing there, and they will be required to register their products with more details on their products and the prices. They will have each, a wallet for online financial transactions as the system will propose different modes of payment.
The other section is for the porters, and all of these options have their own specificities and requirements for usability.
Participants of the training proposed some improvements like the possibility of adding information at any stage of the process from the booking until the time of the visit to the park.
In addition, participants suggested that the system should give clarity that the system is giving overview but further info should be provided while on the field as also the system should allow editing at any period of time. The system should define whether the client has paid or if he will pay upon his/her arrival.
This system will allow the users to share their comments and feedback which will surely have a positive impact on improving the services.
According to the participants, this system is important as it helps to digitize the tourism industry and it will be very beneficial as it will allow to extract data for reporting and information sharing for better decision-making.
The development of this system followed a participatory approach from the concept phase to the current phase of Minimum Viable Product (MVP) where this system has basic functionalities to allow the participants to understand how it will work. The next phase will be live testing, where the system will be online, and the users will be using it and will be able to share comments for bug fixing while they use it. Thereafter, there will be the final phase of rolling it out for the public.
GVTC was represented to this training by Ronald Dweyne Baleterewa, the IT Officer and Mr. Mukeshimana Juvenal, the GVTC Program Assistant while the training was facilitated by Mr. Ntege Simon Peter and Robert Omoya from Robylinks Solutions ltd.
Compiled by Juvenal Mukeshimana
GVTC Program Assistant.
