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Role Summary
The Tony Blair Institute, in partnership with the Rwanda Development Board, is seeking to recruit an exceptional Advisor – Tourism Competitiveness & Investment Facilitation to support Rwanda’s ambition to strengthen its position as a premium, high-quality, and diversified tourism destination.
This role will be embedded within the Rwanda Development Board (RDB) and will work closely with the Tourism Office, regulatory counterparts, investment facilitation teams, and wider government stakeholders. The Advisor will support two mutually reinforcing priorities: first, strengthening hospitality service quality standards, inspection practice, and enforcement credibility; and second, advancing tourism product diversification and improving the investment facilitation systems required to attract, assess, and convert high-quality tourism investments.
The position will support RDB to improve the consistency and credibility of hospitality regulation through clearer service quality standards, better inspection operations, and practical enforcement improvements. In parallel, the Advisor will help the Tourism Office identify priority gaps in Rwanda’s tourism offer, build a structured pipeline of diversified tourism product opportunities, assess incoming investor proposals, and strengthen coordination across the tourism investment facilitation process.
The role requires a strong delivery-oriented professional who can bridge tourism sector strategy, service quality, regulation, investment facilitation, institutional coordination, and practical implementation. The Advisor will be expected to diagnose operational and market bottlenecks, design practical tools and frameworks, support institutional adoption, and work hands-on with government teams to improve the systems that underpin tourism competitiveness, visitor experience, and investment conversion.
This is not a traditional advisory role. It requires someone able to move between policy, operations, investors, and delivery; translate strategic priorities into usable tools and routines; and help RDB build stronger internal capability across both hospitality quality enforcement and tourism product development.
Role Responsibilities
1. Strategic Tourism Competitiveness Advisory
- Advise RDB and the Tourism Office on practical interventions to strengthen Rwanda’s tourism competitiveness, with balanced attention to hospitality service quality, regulatory credibility, tourism product diversification, and investment facilitation
- Support the translation of Rwanda’s premium tourism positioning and NST2 tourism priorities into clear operational reforms, product opportunities, tools, and delivery plans
- Provide analysis on service quality gaps, regulatory bottlenecks, tourism product gaps, investor requirements, institutional coordination challenges, and implementation constraints
- Support RDB leadership to prioritize high-impact actions that improve the visitor experience, strengthen regulatory credibility, diversify Rwanda’s tourism offer, and improve investor confidence
- Prepare concise briefs, decision papers, product opportunity notes, and implementation updates for senior government and RDB stakeholders
2. Hospitality Service Quality Standards & Regulation
- Conduct a rapid diagnostic of current hospitality inspection, classification, and enforcement practices to identify key gaps, bottlenecks, and root causes
- Support the design of a tiered hospitality service quality standards framework covering facilities, service delivery, and staff conduct
- Develop practical tools that can be used by both hospitality operators and inspectors as a clear compliance reference and objective inspection benchmark
- Develop an inspection operations guide setting out how inspections should be planned, conducted, documented, escalated, and followed up
- Identify quick wins and prepare a short-term enforcement improvement roadmap to strengthen inspection consistency, regulatory credibility, and service quality follow-through
3. Tourism Product Diversification & Pipeline Development
- Support RDB’s Tourism Office to develop a structured tourism product diversification pipeline aligned with NST2 priorities and Rwanda’s premium destination positioning
- Map Rwanda’s current tourism product offer and identify priority gaps and opportunities across high-value and emerging tourism segments
- Develop a framework for prioritizing tourism product opportunities based on strategic fit, market demand, investor appetite, feasibility, geographic spread, contribution to length of stay, and alignment with national targets
- Support the Tourism Office to convert priority product categories into clear opportunity concepts and investor-facing propositions
- Build and maintain a prioritized pipeline of tourism product opportunities, including new concepts, active investor leads, proposals under assessment, and opportunities requiring cross-government support
4. Tourism Investment Facilitation & Investor Assessment
- Design a front-end investor assessment framework enabling the Tourism Office to evaluate investor seriousness, strategic fit, and project quality at the earliest stage of engagement
- Assess incoming tourism investment proposals against agreed criteria, including investor seriousness, product quality, destination fit, commercial viability, sustainability, and potential contribution to Rwanda’s tourism objectives
- Develop an investor journey and decision-point guide clarifying roles, responsibilities, handover points, and escalation channels across RDB departments and partner agencies
- Develop and operationalise an investment monitoring tracker to record investor interactions, assessment outcomes, pipeline status, and next steps
- Support follow-through on priority investor engagements, ensuring that bottlenecks are identified, escalated, and resolved in a timely manner
5. Coordination, Institutional Strengthening & Capacity Building
- Establish a coordination embedding toolkit, including standardized templates, escalation protocols, and operating procedures for both tourism investment facilitation and quality service follow-through
- Strengthening coordination between the Tourism Office, investment facilitation teams, regulatory counterparts, and relevant partner agencies
- Design and deliver capacity-building sessions to equip Tourism Office staff and relevant counterparts to use the service quality tools, investor assessment framework, coordination protocols, and monitoring tracker independently
- Support regular review routines with RDB teams to track progress, unblock constraints, and maintain delivery discipline across both workstreams
- Contribute to embedding a more data-driven, results-oriented, service-quality-focused, and investor-responsive culture within the relevant RDB teams
Candidate Profile
- 10+ years of relevant experience in tourism development, hospitality, destination competitiveness, investment facilitation, private sector development, public sector delivery, management consulting, or a related field
- Strong understanding of tourism competitiveness, including hospitality service quality, regulatory systems, inspection practices, tourism product development, and investor facilitation
- Demonstrated experience designing practical frameworks, standards, operating procedures, assessment tools, delivery roadmaps, or institutional systems that can be adopted by government or private sector teams
- Experience identifying, assessing, prioritizing, or developing tourism product opportunities, including converting sector priorities into clear concepts, pipelines, or investor-facing propositions
- Experience supporting investment facilitation, investor assessment, project pipeline development, or private sector engagement, preferably in tourism, hospitality, real estate, infrastructure, conservation, culture, or destination development
- Strong ability to diagnose operational and institutional bottlenecks, synthesize evidence, and translate findings into practical solutions, tools, and recommendations for senior stakeholders
- Excellent communication, facilitation, and stakeholder management skills, with experience working in complex multi-agency environments; experience in Africa, or comparable emerging premium tourism destinations is highly advantageous
Capabilities and Ways of Working
Agility & Comfort with Ambiguity
- Brings structure and clarity in complex, fast-moving environments
- Balances strategic thinking with hands-on execution
- Adapts quickly to shifting priorities while maintaining delivery focus
Builds & Broadens
- Develops strong relationships across government, investors, and partners
- Shares knowledge and strengthens institutional capability
- Continuously builds insight across sectors, markets, and investment trends
Collaboration, Integrity & Trust
- Builds credibility with senior stakeholders and operates with sound judgement
- Navigates complex stakeholder environments with professionalism and discretion
- Communicates clearly and influences effectively across levels
Drive & Delivery
- Maintains a strong focus on tangible outcomes and results
- Takes ownership and accountability for delivery
- Demonstrates persistence in overcoming barriers and driving investments forward
What Success Looks Like (6-12 Months)
- Hospitality service quality standards and inspection systems strengthened: RDB has adopted a clear tiered standards framework and practical inspection tools that improve consistency, reduce subjectivity, and support stronger service quality across the hospitality sector
- Regulatory enforcement credibility improved: RDB and regulatory counterparts have clearer processes for planning, conducting, documenting, escalating, and following up inspections, with a short-term enforcement improvement roadmap agreed and under implementation
- Tourism product diversification pipeline established: RDB has a prioritized pipeline of tourism product opportunities aligned with NST2 priorities, Rwanda’s premium positioning, and clear criteria for strategic fit, market demand, feasibility, and investor readiness
- Tourism investment facilitation strengthened: The Tourism Office has a front-end investor assessment framework, clearer investor journey, coordination protocols, and monitoring tracker to assess proposals, manage investor engagement, and progress priority opportunities more consistently
- Stronger institutional capability and delivery discipline embedded: Relevant RDB teams and counterparts are using the new standards, assessment tools, coordination routines, and tracking systems independently, with clearer accountability and improved follow-through across both workstreams
Closing Date:
2026-08-09
