Visit Rwanda is powerfully present in Europe
Last night’s European final between Paris Saint-Germain and Aston Villa was another bummer for Rwanda’s critics. It was yet another stage for the “Visit Rwanda” brand to shine, and they did not like it one bit.
Both football clubs are partners in Rwanda’s tourism strategy, and the global visibility could not have been better.
Not long ago, on 30 May, the Champions League final also featured two Visit Rwanda partners: PSG and Arsenal. That is back-to-back European finals with Rwanda’s name on the shirts of the world’s biggest clubs. The brand is not just surviving, as some would like to believe; it is thriving. With a clear target of generating $1 billion in tourism revenue by 2029, this continued presence on football’s biggest stages is anything but luck.
Now comes Aston Villa, a club that wears the Rwanda brand as its main sponsor. After London with Arsenal, Rwanda is now taking its brand to Birmingham, the UK’s second-largest city with over a million people. That is a new audience, a new market, and a new opportunity to attract tourists who might never have considered Rwanda before.
This expansion sends a powerful message to those who campaigned against Visit Rwanda and cheered the end of its partnership with Arsenal. Remember when Congo’s Foreign Minister Thérèse Kayikwamba sent desperate letters to Arsenal, PSG, Bayern Munich, and the NBA’s Basketball Africa League, begging them to cut ties with Rwanda? How did that work out?
PSG went on to play in the Champions League and Super Cup finals, both with Rwanda on their sleeves. Aston Villa and Atletico Madrid signed new deals to feature Rwanda as their main sponsor. The NBA’s BAL continues to thrive with Rwandan support. Every single attempt to isolate Rwanda has failed spectacularly.
While critics and detractors wasted their energy on letter-writing campaigns, Rwanda kept building partnerships and expanding its global footprint. The campaign they tried to kill is now bigger than ever. The brand they wanted to bury is now front and center on the biggest stages in world sport.
Clearly, Visit Rwanda is not going anywhere.
